Re: Lua License

["Nick Trout" <nick@...>]

> > Since the issue of licensing has raised I'd just like to check that the
Lua
> > license is compatible with the LGPL license.
> > [...]
> > However, as long as Lua's license is not breached, broadly speaking: you
give
> > the authors credit, leave existing copyright and license notices, and say
if
> > you modified anything, everything is okay.
> > Lua license: http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/lua/copyright.html
>
> This is our view too. We see no incompatibilities. Following the GNU
> classification (http://www.fsf.org/licenses/license-list.html), we would
> say:
>
> - Lua is free software
> - Lua has no copyleft
> - Lua is compatible with the GNU GPL
>
> When we say, in our copyright, "... this implementation have been entirely
> designed and written by...", the "this" refers to Lua, not the resulting
> code. After all, this is the copyright of Lua, not the copyright of the
> final product. If the wording can be improved please tell us how.

So, forgive my confusion. A license is applied by the copyright holder, the
originator of the code. This is the "owner" or "instigator" of the license. So
every copyright must have a license?

Is copyleft when you just copyright something and make it GPL? I cant seem to
find a clear answer for this.

By initiating a copyright you dictate that noone else can just take your code
and say its theirs.

If code goes into the "public domain", there is no copyright, anyone can do
what they want with it, including copyrighting a modified version to
themselves.

If you go copyleft you force the opposite of copyright, which is that the code
is everyones, and everyone will always have access to code, it cannot go
public domain, and you cannot copyright it. This is just GPL?

The license dictates what happens to the code.
Lua license just says this is free code, as long as you dont say you wrote it
and credit the authors, carry on.
If you go GPL, then any changes must be public.
If you go LGPL then any changes may be kept private.

What happens if you have LGPL copyleft? Can you only have GPL copyleft? LGPL
says you dont have to distribute changes to a library if you are commercial
and dont want to. GPL says you must always distribute changes.

Jeez, I thought programming was hard. No wonder these lawyers get paid a lot!

Regards,
Nick