Red Hat's directory server [LWN.net]

Red Hat's directory server

Posted Jun 2, 2005 21:30 UTC (Thu) by fergal (guest, #602)
In reply to: Red Hat's directory server by khim
Parent article: Red Hat's directory server

"GPL+something" (where somethins is additional relaxation, not additional constraint) can be considered "plain GPL" as far as free software is concerned.

Not so sure about that. By relaxing this constraint you are achieving the goal of freedom of use. By allowing linking with unfree software you are hurting the goal of making everything else free because you are making it easier to maintain proprietary modules.

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Red Hat's directory server

Posted Jun 9, 2005 9:52 UTC (Thu) by ringerc (subscriber, #3071) [Link]

While I can see where you're coming from, I think there are a few other important points there:
(a) GPL with exceptions is still way better than proprietary. It's still free. AFAIK you can also take it and "pure-GPL" it if you feel the need.
(b) The modules don't have to be non-free, and the exception doesn't have to permit non-free modules. It can simply be for modules that, for some reason, must have additional restrictions. A good example is MySQL, which offers exceptions for PHP and (AFAIK) OpenSSL.