Where are the RMSs of the world? [LWN.net]

Where are the RMSs of the world?

Posted Sep 30, 2013 8:03 UTC (Mon) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935)
In reply to: Where are the RMSs of the world? by khim
Parent article: 30 years of GNU

> But the practical trigger which driven the exodus was GPLv3 relicensing: one of the very first things GnuTLS project did after exodus was switch back to LGPL2.1+ for libraries (programs were kept under GPLv2 because they are not embedded in other programs). Which is obviously an anathema for “free software soldiers” who insist that you should use GPL for libraries, not LGPL (and as we've seen before GPLv3, not GPLv2).

Actually you're wrong. The relicensing of GnuTLS was from LGPLv3+ to LGPLv2.1+, not from GPL. The reason is the incompatibility between LGPLv3+ and GPLv2. It would have been possible, alternatively, to use a dual-licensing LGPLv3+/GPLv2-only. But it's somewhat more complicated and gives little or no gain.

"Why your next library should be GPL" is an rms essay but FSF practice doesn't necessarily follow that.

There is plenty of "flagship" GNU software that hasn't moved to LGPLv3, for example GTK+. Note that even for non-FSF-assigned software, a single v3+ contribution could be enough to effectively prevent the software from being distributed under GPLv2.

(Log in to post comments)

Where are the RMSs of the world?

Posted Sep 30, 2013 15:48 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Actually you're wrong. The relicensing of GnuTLS was from LGPLv3+ to LGPLv2.1+, not from GPL.

Quite. I can't help noticing that for all khim's very very long replies on this thread, he(?) was apparently unable to just download a pre-GNU-departure copy of GnuTLS and look at its COPYING files (in particular noting that there was still a COPYING.LESSER there).