Berkeley 的大牛论ＧＰＬ，ＬＧＰＬ ａｎｄ ＢＳＤ

 http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/~larry/

On Tuesday 04 December 2001 08:53 pm, Wesley Miaw wrote:
>
>Why can't we use this if it's GPL? Isn't Mash's copyright/licensing
>compatible with GPL? You have to add the GPL stuff at the top too,
>though.

Depends on what your perspective is.


Background info for those not familiar with open-source licensing:

The full-blown GPL is viral in nature.  You can't use GPL source code 
with other code unless you're willing to put the other code under GPL 
too.  You can never mix proprietary code with GPL code, which is a 
severe restriction for commercial developers.

(There's a LGPL that is less restrictive.  I won't get into that.  
That's why we're able to use LAME.)

Mash is released under a modern, modified BSD license.  There are 
almost no restrictions on code usage.  This is intentional.


From the perspective of an outside developer, Mash is GPL compatible.  
To quote the FSF web pages:  "This means you can combine a module which 
was released under that license with a GPL-covered module to make one 
larger program."  The larger program becomes GPL.

An outside developer could also use Mash with proprietary code.  
(Someone is already using Mash in a commercial product in development.) 
The proprietary part stays proprietary.

However, from the perspective of the Open Mash project, we cannot 
include GPL code in Mash.  If we did that, the Mash distribution would 
become GPL.  We want as wide an audience as possible.  Mention GPL and 
most commercial developers walk away.

Hope that makes sense,
Lloyd