Difference between revisions of "Good and bad licence changes"
(Changing from a copyleft licence (e.g. GPL) to a weak copyleft (e.g. LGPL) or to a permissive licence (e.g. Apache License) is almost never a good idea.) |
(→External links: ===LibreOffice=== LibreOffice (LO) was originally LGPLv3+ but has switched to MPL2. More precisely, it will be dual-licensed under both, but distributors can only be held to the) |
||
| Line 30: | Line 30: | ||
status.net was AGPL, but the developers next genetion replacement was Apache Licence. The lead developer, [https://identi.ca/conversation/97606977 Evan Prodromou says] the change is because the software fits the three criteria mentioned above. | status.net was AGPL, but the developers next genetion replacement was Apache Licence. The lead developer, [https://identi.ca/conversation/97606977 Evan Prodromou says] the change is because the software fits the three criteria mentioned above. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===LibreOffice=== | ||
| + | |||
| + | LibreOffice (LO) was originally LGPLv3+ but has switched to MPL2. More precisely, it will be dual-licensed under both, but distributors can only be held to the weaker of the two sets of requirements, which is MPL2. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Is this justified? Maybe. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Most of the functionality in LO is also available in Apache Open Office (AOO), and AOO has a permissive licence (Apache License v2). This puts LO in a weak position because if they ask third-party projects to abide by the weak copyleft requirements of the LGPL, they might simply walk away and work with AOO instead. | ||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||
* [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html Why you shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library], '''GNU Philosophy''' | * [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html Why you shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library], '''GNU Philosophy''' | ||
Revision as of 00:09, 29 January 2013
Changing from a copyleft licence (e.g. GPL) to a weak copyleft (e.g. LGPL) or to a permissive licence (e.g. Apache License) is almost never a good idea.
Contents
The rare situations where it's a good idea
Using a weak copyleft or a permissive licence can be a good idea if:
- the functionality of the software is already widely available in proprietary software; AND
- wide adoption will help break a form of control that proprietary software companies have on a domain (i.e. via a format or protocol); AND
- the copyleft provisions are reducing adoption
Examples
Ogg Vorbis and Theora
The Ogg media suite is an example of when it's good to use a permissive licence.
VLC
A seemingly bad change:
- Left wondering why VLC relicensed some code to LGPL, Bradley M. Kuhn
QT toolkit
Bradley Kuhn says QT's GPL -> LGPL switch was a good move: LGPL'ing of Qt Will Encourage More Software Freedom
status.net and pump.io
status.net was AGPL, but the developers next genetion replacement was Apache Licence. The lead developer, Evan Prodromou says the change is because the software fits the three criteria mentioned above.
LibreOffice
LibreOffice (LO) was originally LGPLv3+ but has switched to MPL2. More precisely, it will be dual-licensed under both, but distributors can only be held to the weaker of the two sets of requirements, which is MPL2.
Is this justified? Maybe.
Most of the functionality in LO is also available in Apache Open Office (AOO), and AOO has a permissive licence (Apache License v2). This puts LO in a weak position because if they ask third-party projects to abide by the weak copyleft requirements of the LGPL, they might simply walk away and work with AOO instead.
External links
- Why you shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library, GNU Philosophy
