OpenEuphoria

Re: Open source licenses explained

• Posted by Matt Lewis <matthewwalkerlewis at gmail.com> Sep 22, 2006
• 695 views

D. Newhall wrote:
> 
> Yes, in some ways the LGPL is more restrictive than Rob's present license but
> in other ways is a lot less restrictive. The LGPL is, for all intents and
> purposes,
> the GPL except that you can use the code as a stand-alone library in
> non-"free"
> applications. So, if Euphoria goes LGPL any modification to the Euphoria code
> must be open sourced as well under the LGPL (or possibly the GPL) but unlike
> the GPL you can put the LGPLed source code into a library or something that
> is used by another incompatible license. If the code is GPLed then if you link
> to the external library your program must be GPLed as well.

I'm curious as to how the LGPL is more restrictive.  You can't even share
binaries with the 2.5 source license, let alone source.  The LGPL just 
goes the other way, saying that you *have* to allow distribution of the
source. 

> My take on the LGPL is that it is infinitely better than the GPL since it
> allows
> freer use but is still a bit cumbersome. I think the MPL is a better license
> over the LGPL since you only need to open-source changes to already existing
> code (with the LGPL anything you add becomes LGPL once you release it). So,
> if Euphoria is MPLed and I write a CAD application that uses Euphoria as a
> scripting
> language I need to release all the Euphoria source code but none of my
> application
> code but if Euphoria was LGPL I could only turn Euphoria into a library (and
> any additions to the library I need to open source) and use it from my
> application.

I think you're confusing the LGPL with the GPL.  I'm not so familiar with
the MPL, but it sounds like a derivative of the LGPL.  Basically, if Euphoria
were LGPL'd, any modifications you made to the interpreter would be LGPL'd,
too.  But you could link it to other non-LGPL'd code, and you wouldn't 
have to release any of that code.

Even if Euphoria were GPL'd, I don't think that you'd have to GPL anything
that you wrote in Euphoria.  You'd have issues if you translated, since 
you'd be linking to the Euphoria run-time library.

Matt Lewis