Subject: Re: libgit2 - a true git library

From: Andreas Ericsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2008 11:52:13 +0100

Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> On Fri, 31 Oct 2008, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> 
>> Git is currently mostly "GPLv2 or later". A BSDish license was
>> mentioned, because it's the most permissive one and that nobody cared
>> that much, though a LGPL/GPL-with-GCC-exception would probably fly.
> 
> I do care.  I think the BSD license is too permissive.  There are really 
> nifty pieces of code in Git that I would be really sorry to see go 
> proprietary.
> 

I agree with Nicolas, for what it's worth. Although I realize my small
contributions to the git code can be trivially rewritten, I think that
will definitely be trickier with Nicolas' contributions.

> 
>> OT: FWIW I prefer BSDish licenses (even the MIT actually) for libraries
>> because I believe that computing is overall better if everyone can use
>> the right tool for the task, and I don't want to prevent people from
>> using good stuff (I hope I write good stuff ;P) because of the license.
> 
> Everybody can and does link against glibc on Linux which is LGPL.  So 
> that doesn't affect "usage".
> 

For dynamic libraries, yes, as you can replace them in-flight if you need
to. For static libraries, it's a different matter. I think the gcc exception
is rather special, as parts of gcc is the dynamic linker initialization code,
which has to be shipped in object form and included in all executables
produced with gcc. Perhaps we'd be better off asking one of EFF's lawyers
what each license means, exactly.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   [email-masked]
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
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