# To subscribers of the xforms list from Peter S Galbraith <GalbraithP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca> :
Bill Unruh wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Jul 2001, Yann Guichoux wrote:
>
> > Does anyone know about the licence under which xforms will be released ?
> > GPL ? LGPL (like GTK) ? There is quite a big difference ...
> > here is an extract of the GNU documentation :
>
> I would certainly feel that LGPL is far more appropriate. GPL "infects"
> all programs using it, forcing them to also be released under GPL if
> they use parts of the system. For a library like xforms, I think this
> would unduely limit its use and usefulness. LGPL allows use of the
> xforms library without forcing the whole program therefor to also be
> released under GPL.
It really depends on whether T.C. makes any money off of XForms
licensing for commercial application and ants to continue to do
so. Then that case, he could GPL XForms and commercial
developpers would seek an alternate licesne from him (or he could
dual-license it off the bat).
If his aim is to make it wide-open, then LGPL is probably more
appropriate.
My only concern is that it's GPL-compatible. There are too many
GPLed packages that are built for XForms and don't carry any kind
of exemption clause granting permission to link against XForms.
I agree that in those case some sort of implicit permission has
been granted to link to XForms since it was built with that in
mind, but it's much nicer to have a clear license statement.
While it's not T.C.'s responsibility to fix the broken licensing
of other people's work, he has an opportunity to do so.
Peter
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