Re: [GNU-linux-libre] license of 'yggdrasil' software

[Alexandre Oliva]

Hello, Bill,

I haven't looked at the license, I'm responding about a general
situation, that I'm familiar with, rather than the specifics of this
case.  Also, please bear in mind that IANAL, and I don't speak for GNU
or for the FSF, I'm only sharing my (somewhat informed) understanding of
these issues.

On Mar 13, 2023, bill-auger <bill-auger@peers.community> wrote:

> the license
> embeds the entire GPL license (LGPLv3 in this case), but with an
> addendum, which cancels some of the GPL most important terms -
> this one allows statically-linked binary distribution with no
> obligation to provide any source code nor support for
> re-installation

These are additional permissions indeed.  Some activities that are not
allowed by the LGPL alone, and that depend on permission from the
copyright holder, are allowed by this other license.

It doesn't take freedom away from the licensees.  It adds to the
actions the licensee is permitted to take.

Yeah, in these cases, it allows licensees to constrain the activities
that downstream recipients might be allowed to take, to the point that
the software may reach those downstream recipients as nonfree software.
But all this means is that this is not a copyleft license.  It is still
a free software license, because all of the freedoms are respected, as
much as in the original license: you, as a licensee who receive the
software under its original terms, can still do everything that the LGPL
allowed you to do, and then a little more.

Other downstream recipients may not be so lucky, depending on
intermediaries.  That's not entirely unlike pushover licenses, and even
weak copylefts.  It's exactly how additional permissions under the GPL
were designed to operate.  Indeed, the LGPLv3 is just such a set of
additional permissions.

> my main question is this: doesnt the removal of the obligation
> to provide source code, and also the removal of the ability to
> re-install the LGPL library (aka: tivoization), amount to added
> restrictions?

No, it's a permission (you're allowed to, as in you're no longer
forbidden from), not an obligation or a restriction.

What's more, under the terms of additional permissions, you're allowed
to drop them and distribute the software under the license without those
additional permissions.  If that respects your freedom (and it does),
how could allowing you to do even more no longer respect your freedom?

> me - isnt this effectively granting permission to proprietarize
> the (supposedly) LGPL library?

How's that fundamentally unlike the LGPL itself, allowing (as an
additional permission over the GPLv3) its code to be included in a
program that is nonfree?

> understanding why anyone would choose the GPL, only then to
> remove the unique provisions which distinguish the GPL from
> permissive licenses

Some reasons that come to mind are to begin from a known and familiar
starting point; making it crystal clear that combining the program with
GPLed software is permitted (though the additional permissions may have
to be dropped), pretty much ensuring contributors keep it that way;
leaving no doubt that redistributors can behave just as they would under
the GPL, even to the point of being allowed to redistribute the work,
with or without modifications, under the GPL (or, as in this case, also
under LGPL).  The additional permissions are of no concern for
themselves unless they would like to do those things, which
freedom-respecting distributors normally wouldn't want to do anyway.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva, happy hacker                https://FSFLA.org/blogs/lxo/
   Free Software Activist                       GNU Toolchain Engineer
Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice
but very few check the facts.  Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>