Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] The beginnings of an ladcca manual
From: Nathaniel Virgo (nathaniel.virgo_AT_ntlworld.com)
Date: Tue Dec 10 2002 - 23:25:15 EET
On Tuesday 10 December 2002 6:14 pm, Bob Ham wrote:
> > LGPL would still protect your code in that any alterations to ladcca
> > itself would still have to be released under LGPL - it just means that if
> > commercial companies (or people with inclinations toward non-GPL open
> > source licences) were ever to start taking an interest in linux audio,
> > their apps would be able to link to it, and thus interact seamlessly with
> > the pre-existing Free ones.
>
> Aye, I'm well aware of what the LGPL would mean. That's why I released it
> under the GPL :) I'm not sure about this tho. I don't know that there's
> any need for it to be LGPL, and certainly not for the moment. IMHO, better
> to be safe than sorry where freedom is concerned.
Well, I just think it's restricting the programs that can use the system for
no particularly good reason.
If it was a library that provided, say, some novel dsp features then GPL
makes perfect sense because it guarantees that your library would only
benefit open source apps, and it would not affect end users in any way.
However, this is a library that allows the seamless interaction of sevreal
programs. This means that if a commercial program comes along it won't be
able to use the library, and anyone who wanted to use that program would have
to manually keep loads of files in sync like we do now.
This would make linux a worse system for making music. It would discourage
commercial programs from fitting into the linux paradigm, but it wouldn't
discourage them from existing - you would just have to choose between running
free or commercial apps, which would be bad because people coming to linux
from other systems who are used to commercial apps would probably never use
the free ones.
The pre-amble to the LGPL says,
"[The] Lesser license provides advantages in certain special circumstances.
For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special need to encourage the
widest possible use of a certain library, so that it becomes a de-facto
standard. To achieve this, non-free programs must be allowed to use the
library."
I would argue that this is one of those rare cases. There has to be one
universal standard in order for it to work. A worst-case scenario is that a
competing, proprietary standard could arise, which from an end-user point of
view would be terrible.
These concerns are a long way off, of course, but probably worth bearing in
mind.
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