Re: LGPL vs. GPL

[JohnF]

Ciaran O'Riordan <ciaran@fsfe.org> wrote:
> Encouraging contributions isn't usually a motivation to switch to LGPL.  The
> writers of proprietary software will generally keep the most useful
> functionality in their application code (rather than in your library) and
> will contribute as little as possible.
> 
> A permissive licence (such as the LGPL) can be good if you want your
> application to define an open standard.  For example, the Ogg Vorbis library
> for playing that audio format is under a very permissive licence because the
> goal is to make Ogg a widely used standard (so that free software developers
> can work with an open, patent-free standard instead of the possibly patented
> mp3 format).
> 
> The LGPL can also be good if you think that your field will naturally be
> dominated by a single software package and you think you might loose a
> head-to-head competition with some proprietary rival.  This is the case for
> the GNU standard C library (glibc).  It makes technical sense for all
> GNU/Linux operating systems to use the same libc, and if the developers of
> proprietary software for GNU/Linux wanted to write their own libc, they
> probably could.  So to ensure that they don't feel a need to do that, glibc
> was released under the LGPL.
> 
> So unless you find yourself in either of those rare situations, then it's
> probably best to stay with the GPL.
> 
> You've probably read this, but just in case:
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
> 
> Hope that helps.

Thanks, Ciaran, for the discussion and very useful information.
It indeed helps, and pretty much coincides with (and clarifies)
my original thinking -- not much reason (for me) to use the lgpl.
I hadn't seen why-not-lgpl.html before, but have read it now.
And I've replied to the email lgpl request, informing him
that mimetex will remain gpl'ed.  Thanks again,
-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j@f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )