Exception statements [LWN.net]

Exception statements

Posted Mar 18, 2004 13:09 UTC (Thu) by pivot (guest, #588)
In reply to: Exception statements by mmutz
Parent article: The GPL and library code

> I think this points to a serious issue of the GPL, and one that will drive
> some people away from it: You can't depend on non-free libraries. The
> exception clause will work well in many cases, but fails if you want to
> use a GPL'ed library which doesn't include exception clauses for the set
> of libraries you depend on.

It's not a serious issue of the GPL, it's an issue with those that choose to license the software under the GPL. Eg. Trolltech might have licensed Qt under the LPGL, avoiding the scenario you describe, but they chosed not to.

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Exception statements

Posted Mar 18, 2004 15:25 UTC (Thu) by mmutz (subscriber, #5642) [Link]

> It's not a serious issue of the GPL, it's an issue with those that
> choose to license the software under the GPL. Eg. Trolltech might have
> licensed Qt under the LPGL, avoiding the scenario you describe, but they
> chosed not to.

For obvious reasons. The MySQL/TrollTech business model won't work with LGPL'ed libraries, of course.

The problems I described are problems with the GPL, exactly because they force a certain type of software to be licensed under the Lesser GPL to be more widely available to end users (just as you suggest). But the Lesser GPL was created to allow for wider dissemination of Free Software among developers (there is no point in releasing an application, as opposed to libraries, under the GPL).

If TrollTech needs to distribute Qt under the Lesser GPL, so that GPL'ed software can run under Windows, then that is a problem with the GPL, no?

Exception statements

Posted Mar 18, 2004 19:03 UTC (Thu) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link]

If TrollTech needs to distribute Qt under the Lesser GPL, so that GPL'ed software can run under Windows, then that is a problem with the GPL, no?

Nope, that is the design of the GPL: if you put your code under the GPL, it is precisely in order to prevent it from being combined with proprietary code (e.g. Qt for Windows).

This is entirely separate from the MySQL issue, which was combining with incompatibly-licensed free-software code. Their solution, which seems like a kind of GPL + pseudo-LGPL-for-free-software-only, is interesting...the main question is whether it opens up some loophole or other problem that is not immediately obvious. I'd like to see the FSF's legal counsel comment on it for this reason.

Exception statements

Posted Mar 30, 2004 17:40 UTC (Tue) by hazelsct (subscriber, #3659) [Link]

There's another alternative: TrollTech could simply be more consistent and dual-license Qt for Windows... Blaming the GPL for the fallout of a TrollTech marketing decision -- which happens to be inconsistent with their policy on other platforms, and also inconsistent with the press release they co-authored and this LWN article -- is unhelpful at best.