Re: FLTK? (OT: licenses)

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@...>]

On Sat, Jul 02, 2005 at 11:01:13PM -0500, Javier Guerra wrote:
> On Saturday 02 July 2005 12:36 pm, Vijay Aswadhati wrote:
> > I find it hard to find any humor in GPL software, especially for a
> > library.  GPL is a virus that can only be seen from 20,000 feet high.
> 
> just curious: it seems you like a BSD license much better than GPL (i guess 
> it's because BSD gives you more freedoms to use the code, among other 
> things).  What do you think of LGPL as a less virulent license?  i think it's 
> a nice compromise between freedom and protection.

The LGPL will prevent you from ever using the library on a proprietary
system.  This includes all major gaming consoles, which is an important
target that anyone with hopes of selling their game project needs to
remember.  The LGPL requires that end users be able to re-link the LGPL
portion into the final program, and you're prohibited from doing that
on all of the major consoles.  (Since Lua is commonly used in games, I
think this is relevant.)

> (just to openly state my bias, i tend to use GPL first for my own code; 
> sometimes switch to a 'more open' license if it makes people happy)

In the same interests: I tend to X11-license my code, unless I have
specific reason to do otherwise, and I have a general "don't put
licenses in the way of code reuse" philosophy.  I like the idea that
I (and anyone else) can use my own code for any purpose, including
proprietary ones, and I don't like the idea that I might not be able
to do so because I accepted contributions under the GPL.

-- 
Glenn Maynard