Slashdot Mirror
Nokia Makes LGPL Version of PyQt
EtaCarinae writes "Nokia didn't succeed in convincing Riverbank to change its licensing terms on PyQt, and so decided to create their own LGPL'ed version of it. From the FAQ at the PySide site: 'Nokia's initial research into Python bindings for Qt involved speaking with Riverbank Computing, the makers of PyQt. We had several discussions with them to see if it was possible to use PyQt to achieve our goals. Unfortunately, a common agreement could not be found , so in the end we decided to proceed with PySide.'"
Do you see the Linux kernel gravitating to BSD? Do you see GIMP gravitating to BSD? Do you see OO.o gravitating to BSD?
Sorry to shatter your masturbatory fantasies, but the GPL is still the most popular license among open source projects. The only "freedom" it removes is the freedom to harm the freedoms of other users of the software, much like the law restricts your freedom to stab me in the face. Calling it "closed" is utterly absurd. Most people, except for a tiny bit of fanatical free software advocates, prefer the LGPL over the GPL for libraries. Not because it's on the path to BSD-like permissive licenses, but because they feel it is more in line with their reason for using the GPL, i.e., to ensure their code stays open and other people can't make closed forks or incorporate parts of the code into closed projects. They object to the GPL for this purpose because when used for a library it ends up going beyond this and additionally forcing everyone who uses it (which is, you know, the whole point of libraries) to open their code. Nothing more.
You are just misinterpreting and distorting the facts and outright lying to support your deep-seated preconception that "OMG BSD LICENSE IS THE BEST THING EVER GPL SUXXX". To say your conclusions are on shaky ground would be the understatement of the millennium.
PyQt is open source. Or isn't the GPL considered open anymore?
Version 2 I consider borderline. Version 3 isn't. It's a legal minefield; a poison pill in exactly the same sense that Microsoft's "Shared Source," was when Eric Raymond called it that.
Stallman corrupts everything he touches. The MIT/BSD license, without restriction or bias, entirely perpetuate the type of gift culture described here. With the GPL, Stallman created a mean spirited, twisted mockery of that, and version 3 has only made it worse. The other disastrous effect that Stallman has had, is to further muddying the waters by entangling the political doctrine(s) of Trotskyite Communism with software development.
The GPL's (and FSF's) influence on the Linux user and development community is plain to see. Its' most vocal members are avaricious, paranoid, howling fanatics who are terrified beyond all reason of Microsoft, and who spend far more of their time engaging in further paranoia about the amount that other people, "give back," than they devote to their own programming efforts.
The GPL and the organisation that spawned it are an infernal scourge; a pestilence on the face of Linux and greater UNIX, and it would do the world good if we could entirely get rid of both.