igraph license, was: Re: [igraph] pagerank implementation questions

[Gabor Csardi]

On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 12:05:39PM -0800, stainless steel some one wrote:
[...]
> Me neither :-)
> 
> But from my past reading, there are some issues even
> regarding static/dynamic linking, blah, blah, ...
> whether it should be considered as derived work in
> case of LGPL. So they come up with that exception. 
> 
> An example would be: suppose application A (licensed
> L) use two libraries B (GPL) & C (other license X);
> then how should the binary be distributed?
> 
> B's GPL requires to disclose all the souce code of A &
> C? but this may not be possible with L and X's
> licenses' term.

Isn't LGPL a solution for this?

> For your concern, maybe you can add two more words, as
>  underscored in the following:
>
> "2. The exception is that you may use, copy, link,
>  modify and distribute under your own terms, binary
> object code versions of works based on the __unchanged
> original__ Library."

Now i'm a bit unsure again. It says _based_ on the library.
What does that mean? Linking against it? Or modifying and improving it?
Linking would be possible with LGPL, so perhaps the latter.
But then, again it makes no sense.

> I think the intent is clear:
> -- enhancement to library itself should be contributed
> back
> -- while allow application to use the library in
> binary form.

Yes, the first is clear. As for the second, i'm not quite sure that
this is what i want. Especially after reading
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html

Btw. is your request just theoretical or you know someone who 
actually wants to include igraph in a propriatery application? :)

My attitude in general is that other people like RMS have already run
these laps and designed the GPL and LGPL, and i trust them, 
i think they know what they're doing. I just want to write 
and share code. :)

Sorry, i still didn't get the point. So the simple question is:
why the exception, why isn't LGPL enough? 

Gabor

ps. i can imagine that there are thousands of threads like this
across mailing lists of every single insignificant GPL projects,
but it's ok, let's be done with it. Apologies to people who are 
already fed up with this....

[...]

-- 
Csardi Gabor <address@hidden>    MTA RMKI, ELTE TTK