From lunacolon3 at proton.me  Thu Jul  9 00:21:07 2026
From: lunacolon3 at proton.me (Luna)
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:21:07 +0000
Subject: Exceptions to copyleft-next
Message-ID: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>

Are there any plans to publish exceptions to copyleft-next similar to the LGPL?
Weaker copyleft licenses are better for some projects, and having one compatible
with the full copyleft-next license might be nice.

An exception might also be a more clear way for developers to opt out of the
Network Services Copyleft clause. With the current system, it might be unclear
whether developer opted out. If there was an exception, it would be more
standardized and it could be included in an SPDX license identifier.
Luna
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From bkuhn at ebb.org  Mon Jul 13 02:12:40 2026
From: bkuhn at ebb.org (Bradley =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=2E_K=FChn?=)
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2026 22:12:40 -0400
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
Message-ID: <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>

Luna wrote:
> Weaker copyleft licenses are better for some projects, and having
> one compatible with the full copyleft-next license might be nice.

I'm working on an essay that talks about the questions of copyleft
compatibility¹.  While the essay that I'm working on won't directly
address your inquiry, it's a “prerequisite” (of a sort) to help us
all think through what copyleft compatibility really is and how we
might design a weaker “feeder” licenses (i.e., as we have with LGPL ⇒
GPL ⇒ AGPL) that coalesce *into* the strongest possible copyleft, and
what forms of proprietarization are permitted by those that would be
forbidden by copyleft-next (proper).

I'll state frankly that I find the “compatibility” that allows
movement from LGPLv2.1 ⇒ GPLv2 as an unmitigated disaster².
Meanwhile, the movement from LGPLv3 ⇒ GPLv3 ⇒ AGPLv3 is only a
*minor* disaster; it's still clunky, confusing, and oft-abused³.

I've been wondering for years if we (as a community) *really need*
weak copyleft.  FOSS has changed so much since the LGPLv2.1 (1999),
the Classpath Exception (≈2002), and LGPLv3 (2007) were written.

Nevertheless, I am very open to a discussion on this list on *why*
and *whether* we need weak copyleft!

IMO — after 30 years of walking the line between weak and strong
copyleft in my work — I'm starting to wonder if we really need any
weak versions anymore?  … I'm not decided, but “keep it strong” is
how I lean these days.

¹ See email in reply to this one.

² If you doubt me in the least, read LGPLv2.1§3¶1 and post in reply
  your (plural) explanations why it's not a unmitigated disaster.

³ The abuse mainly comes from the Additional Permissions (GPLv3§7¶1)
  and (for lack of a better term, I'll coin one now) Permitted
  Additional Restrictions (GPLv3§7¶3(a-f)) are manipulated by bad
  actors to mistreat downstream and leave them terrified to exercise
  their Further Restriction Removal rights under GPLv3§7¶4.

-- 
     -- bkühn — On Fediverse (via Mastodon): https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn

From bkuhn at ebb.org  Mon Jul 13 02:26:14 2026
From: bkuhn at ebb.org (Bradley =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=2E_K=FChn?=)
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2026 22:26:14 -0400
Subject: Announcing Copyleft Correspondence! (was Re: Do we still need weak
 copyleft?)
In-Reply-To: <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
Message-ID: <alRMxoLcBpufLy--@ebb.org>

Meanwhile …

I wrote a few minutes ago:
> I'm working on an essay that talks about the questions of copyleft
> compatibility¹ …
> … ¹ See email in reply to this one.

I guess this is as good a time as any to explain my logistical idea
(that I've discussed with Richard⁴ at length).

Our plan is to publish a series of essays called “Copyleft
Correspondence” — in which copyleft thinkers can publish ideas for
what copyleft-next should do, how it should work, and new approaches
to how copyleft works (or should work) in general.

We (Richard and I) would be open to guest essays as well — but, as
co-editors-in-chief, we'll need to review them first (and we would of
course do that⁴ on public in the mailing list here).

We hope that Copyleft Correspondence can become a series of
pre-drafting essays.  I have often said that a FOSS license serves as
the “Constitution of the Community” for FOSS projects.  Thus, I think
of the Copyleft Correspondence like the Federalist⁵ Papers — if they
were published *before* drafting of the USA Constitution instead of
*after*.

(Of course, we hope to continue in the tradition of the USA
Constitution thereafter and publish Copyleft-*Next* Correspondence
*after* copyleft-next 1.0 is released.  We think this'll be much
better than the “Rationale Document” process of GPLv3.)


⁴ I remind everyone that logistical discussions about how we might
  run the project are not “substantive discussions” about
  copyleft-next are not HBR issues.  We've been trolled on that issue
  recently, so I just wanna put a fine point on it.

⁵ Richard and I otherwise want to avoid the term “federalist”.  While
  during the late 18ᵗʰ century, the term simply spoke about
  centralizing the national state into a single document of rights
  and organization, the term has a different political meaning now.
  We settled on calling it “Correspondence” to make it clear these
  are just the ideas that folks are having — written up formally into
  essays and position papers, and curated for consideration.
--
     -- bkühn — On Fediverse (via Mastodon): https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn

From james at frost.cx  Mon Jul 13 18:50:26 2026
From: james at frost.cx (James Frost)
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2026 19:50:26 +0100
Subject: =?US-ASCII?Q?Re=3A_Do_we_still_need_weak_copyleft=3F_?=
 =?US-ASCII?Q?=28was_Re=3A_Exceptions_to_copyleft-next=29?=
In-Reply-To: <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
Message-ID: <20561924-0E10-48A9-9EED-FC23255A3B53@frost.cx>

>Nevertheless, I am very open to a discussion on this list on *why*
>and *whether* we need weak copyleft!
>
>IMO — after 30 years of walking the line between weak and strong
>copyleft in my work — I'm starting to wonder if we really need any
>weak versions anymore?  … I'm not decided, but “keep it strong” is
>how I lean these days.

I guess I'm going to tackle weak copyleft from the other side; permissive licences.

One of the main theoretical uses of weaker copyleft is for libraries. It is often beneficial to have the underlying libraries for some complex task be open and shared across a community, and the benefit from the increased consistency and shared development on the underlying capability.

A stronger copyleft licence would however prevent many of the use cases, whether they be proprietary project (often funding things through monetisation), or advocate internal scripts that are not intended to be shared. So the theory is that a weaker copyleft that only applies to the library code itself is needed.

In practice however I think this role is moreso served via permissive licences. Companies are a lot more comfortable with them and the compatibility is much easier to understand. The economic incentives do the rest to keep permissive things open for anything that multiple groups actually care about. One area this breaks down is hardware specific software, as only its manufacturer truly cares about it. Everyone else struggles to get over the initial investment required to get a usable solution across different hardware. (Though once they do it can very much become the standard.)

That is my personal theory of it anyway, whoch is admitted biased from the positon of working on scientific software.

Thanks,
James.


From fontana at sharpeleven.org  Tue Jul 14 02:25:39 2026
From: fontana at sharpeleven.org (Richard Fontana)
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2026 22:25:39 -0400
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
Message-ID: <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jul 12, 2026 at 10:19 PM Bradley M. Kühn <bkuhn at ebb.org> wrote:
>
> Luna wrote:
> > Weaker copyleft licenses are better for some projects, and having
> > one compatible with the full copyleft-next license might be nice.
>
> I've been wondering for years if we (as a community) *really need*
> weak copyleft.  FOSS has changed so much since the LGPLv2.1 (1999),
> the Classpath Exception (≈2002), and LGPLv3 (2007) were written.
>
> Nevertheless, I am very open to a discussion on this list on *why*
> and *whether* we need weak copyleft!

Me too. I've thought for some time that weak copyleft is a failed (or
now-irrelevant) paradigm, if only because of the political success of
noncopyleft FOSS licenses. There is clearly an audience for copyleft
in general, which I think means something like strong (or at least
"non-weak" as the copyleft-next README eventually put it) copyleft,
but who really wants weak copyleft nowadays? There are certain
projects and organizations attached to *certain* historically notable
(non-GNU-pedigree) weak copyleft license families, but I don't think
that truly comes down to a belief that the concept of weak copyleft is
superior in the relevant situations. Maybe historical LGPL projects
would consider a weak variant of copyleft-next over a default strong
copyleft-next?

GPL exceptions actually worked pretty well for many base-GPLv2 (and
perhaps base-GPLv3) projects; perhaps the tradition of having
relatively simple exceptions could be adopted by the future
copyleft-next community.

Richard

From tytso at mit.edu  Tue Jul 14 04:39:02 2026
From: tytso at mit.edu (Theodore Tso)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:39:02 -0400
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>

On Mon, Jul 13, 2026 at 10:25:39PM -0500, Richard Fontana wrote:
> Me too. I've thought for some time that weak copyleft is a failed (or
> now-irrelevant) paradigm, if only because of the political success of
> noncopyleft FOSS licenses. There is clearly an audience for copyleft
> in general, which I think means something like strong (or at least
> "non-weak" as the copyleft-next README eventually put it) copyleft,
> but who really wants weak copyleft nowadays?

When you are referring to "weak copyleft", are you referring the
various "file-based" weak copylefts, such as the MPL, EPL, and CDDL?
Or are you also including the LGPL?  I agree that the file-based weak
copyleft licenses aren't particularly interesting at least to me.  But
library use case is one that I think is still can be relevant today
and moving forward.

						- Ted

From zack at upsilon.cc  Tue Jul 14 08:54:29 2026
From: zack at upsilon.cc (Stefano Zacchiroli)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:54:29 +0200
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <ylpknzubeq2z2valsr5w4ifnlknvsq4veovsmbibp23rxcxfwt@ipx2w2m7t3m6>

On Mon, Jul 13, 2026 at 10:25:39PM -0400, Richard Fontana wrote:
> Me too. I've thought for some time that weak copyleft is a failed (or
> now-irrelevant) paradigm, if only because of the political success of
> noncopyleft FOSS licenses.

I think so too. But is that a good enough reason to give up on weak
copyleft as a licensing scheme that could make sense in general, simply
because it has failed to gain traction so far? (Yes, I realize that "so
far" spans multiple decades, but still.)

The software commons would, in my view, be better if, for example,
OpenCV had been released under a weak copyleft license rather than the
Apache License it uses today. Even if OpenCV's success plausibly stems
from not being released under weak copyleft, what if a different future
library *could* succeed and become important under a weak copyleft
regime? Is there any policy or strategic reason to preclude that
possibility?

> GPL exceptions actually worked pretty well for many base-GPLv2 (and
> perhaps base-GPLv3) projects; perhaps the tradition of having
> relatively simple exceptions could be adopted by the future
> copyleft-next community.

You surprised me with that last paragraph; it seems to go in a different
direction than the rest of the mail. Are you saying that an exception
that implements weak copyleft on top of the standard copyleft-next is
something you would be willing to consider? If so, that would be
analogous to how LGPL-3 is implemented today, and I'm not sure what
we're discussing in this subthread anymore :-).

Cheers
-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli - https://upsilon.cc/zack
Full professor of Computer Science, Polytechnic Institute of Paris
Co-founder & Chief scientific officer Software Heritage

From fontana at sharpeleven.org  Tue Jul 14 18:21:37 2026
From: fontana at sharpeleven.org (Richard Fontana)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2026 14:21:37 -0400
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <ylpknzubeq2z2valsr5w4ifnlknvsq4veovsmbibp23rxcxfwt@ipx2w2m7t3m6>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
 <ylpknzubeq2z2valsr5w4ifnlknvsq4veovsmbibp23rxcxfwt@ipx2w2m7t3m6>
Message-ID: <CAGT84B3uqL3HOpZie7Qjv3Fw+c6fMVe1gka6uJZ2NatRGFfegA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 4:54 AM Stefano Zacchiroli <zack at upsilon.cc> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2026 at 10:25:39PM -0400, Richard Fontana wrote:
>
> > GPL exceptions actually worked pretty well for many base-GPLv2 (and
> > perhaps base-GPLv3) projects; perhaps the tradition of having
> > relatively simple exceptions could be adopted by the future
> > copyleft-next community.
>
> You surprised me with that last paragraph; it seems to go in a different
> direction than the rest of the mail. Are you saying that an exception
> that implements weak copyleft on top of the standard copyleft-next is
> something you would be willing to consider? If so, that would be
> analogous to how LGPL-3 is implemented today, and I'm not sure what
> we're discussing in this subthread anymore :-).

I was thinking of the non-LGPL tradition of having relatively
minimalist GPLv2 exceptions, like (whatever its substantive faults)
the GNU Classpath Exception. I feel like this worked somewhat well in
practice, particularly in the pre-GPLv3 world, apart from the general
lack of standardization.

What I would be disinclined to favor is something like LGPLv3, which
is largely just LGPLv2.x with its early 1990s oddities disguised to
look like an elaborate 21st century GPLv3 additional permission.

Richard

From fontana at sharpeleven.org  Tue Jul 14 18:22:58 2026
From: fontana at sharpeleven.org (Richard Fontana)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2026 14:22:58 -0400
Subject: Fwd: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <CAGT84B0wsafTO2EgzWh_cfvGbpnaaNnee0Pu1N30aT0GeW0snw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>
 <CAGT84B0wsafTO2EgzWh_cfvGbpnaaNnee0Pu1N30aT0GeW0snw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAGT84B1QP+9WWSrnnkpnfipuGjFcHUoCNRK9aJ3j07JOvFUfXQ@mail.gmail.com>

[sorry meant to send this to the list]

On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 12:39 AM Theodore Tso <tytso at mit.edu> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2026 at 10:25:39PM -0500, Richard Fontana wrote:
> > Me too. I've thought for some time that weak copyleft is a failed (or
> > now-irrelevant) paradigm, if only because of the political success of
> > noncopyleft FOSS licenses. There is clearly an audience for copyleft
> > in general, which I think means something like strong (or at least
> > "non-weak" as the copyleft-next README eventually put it) copyleft,
> > but who really wants weak copyleft nowadays?
>
> When you are referring to "weak copyleft", are you referring the
> various "file-based" weak copylefts, such as the MPL, EPL, and CDDL?
> Or are you also including the LGPL?  I agree that the file-based weak
> copyleft licenses aren't particularly interesting at least to me.  But
> library use case is one that I think is still can be relevant today
> and moving forward.

Yeah I guess I wasn't thinking carefully there about the distinction.

When (many years ago now) I referred to copyleft-next as "non-weak"
rather than "strong" I think it was because I was starting to despair
that copyleft-next couldn't be practically implemented in such a way
that a GPL vs LGPL sort of distinction would be meaningful. (I
remember someone playfully accusing me of adopting the views of Larry
Rosen.) However I don't necessarily think that now.

Richard

From bkuhn at ebb.org  Wed Jul 15 01:31:19 2026
From: bkuhn at ebb.org (Bradley =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=2E_K=FChn?=)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2026 18:31:19 -0700
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <CAGT84B1QP+9WWSrnnkpnfipuGjFcHUoCNRK9aJ3j07JOvFUfXQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>
 <CAGT84B0wsafTO2EgzWh_cfvGbpnaaNnee0Pu1N30aT0GeW0snw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAGT84B1QP+9WWSrnnkpnfipuGjFcHUoCNRK9aJ3j07JOvFUfXQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <albi5_-ap5rgZFw6@ebb.org>

First, to answer Ted's question from myself (Richard already answered
from his perspective upthread): I was thinking of the whole class
of weak copylefts from “very weak” to “somewhat weak” (i.e., MPL,
EPL, LGPL, and the Classpath Exception² too).

Folks will be surprised to learn that these days — at least until we
release copyleft-next 1.0 — LGPLv2.1 is my favorite copyleft license,
for various reasons.  I like it more than GPLv[23] now. 🤭

Nevertheless, it's unclear to me about the library thing.  glibc
needed LGPLv2.1 because there were *so many* libc implementations
that there was no chance that anyone was going to use a GPLv2'd C
library with so many other options available (which remained true for
decades — the number of times libc has been reimplemented … 🤦 … but
that's OT. 😀)

While there was a period of time when I was a paid representative of
the FSF and avoided saying so publicly, (and Ted will probably like
to learn this, as he and I debated this long ago when I
worked for FSF): IMO, FSF *erred* (& continues to err) by insisting
libreadline stay GPLvN-or-later rather than moving to
LGPLv2.1-or-later after libedit caught up.

What I'm wondering, though, is, given what's happening in computing,
as development cycles becoming shorter and shorter (for various
reasons, including but not limited to LLM-gen-AI assistance),
re-implementing an API from scratch is a lot easier than it once was.


Also, the community has bifurcated so badly that no one wants to
“live in the middle”.  What I'm seeing is that folks either want
copyleft to save the world from for-profit control of codebases¹, or
they are fine with for-profit control of codebases.

Ultimately, weak copylefts and non-copyleft licenses can be so easily
manipulated by a single company or a cartel of companies so that only
some but not all of the code is available.  OpenDaylight is a great
example of where this works great: the code itself is only of
interest to companies who build really really big networks, so they
can use the EPL as form of a “non-compete treaty” among each other to
decide what parts of software stack they want to not-compete on, and
then proprietarize to compete on the rest.

Who needs that anymore?

However, Ted does raise an interesting point: can anyone think of an
example of a project that uses the LGPL in the way that I describe?
🤔 Maybe it's an exception to my “no weak copyleft” rule?

Finally, yes, I know that for-profit companies love non-copylefted
code.  So what?  We've been kowtowing to "oh, Big Tech, please
adopt our software and fund it!" for decades.  What has it gotten
us?  A bunch of underfunded maintainers, and a precious few who
are well funded but hopelessly overworked.

And the projects that have that situation the worst?  The ones
under non-copyleft licenses, of course!


¹ Yes, the strongest copylefts like AGPLv3 are indeed used in weird
  proprietary relicensing schemes, but “copyleft equality”  clause
  (which Richard initially named “copyleft nullification” takes care
  of that problem).

² I'm a co-author of the Classpath Exception, and I argued pretty
  hard that it should be called the Least GPL. 😀  No one else liked
  the idea.
--
     -- bkühn — On Fediverse (via Mastodon): https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn

From tytso at mit.edu  Wed Jul 15 01:57:25 2026
From: tytso at mit.edu (Theodore Tso)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2026 21:57:25 -0400
Subject: Fwd: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <CAGT84B1QP+9WWSrnnkpnfipuGjFcHUoCNRK9aJ3j07JOvFUfXQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>
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 <CAGT84B1QP+9WWSrnnkpnfipuGjFcHUoCNRK9aJ3j07JOvFUfXQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <albnxWtDVOqwGhDk@mit.edu>

On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 02:22:58PM -0500, Richard Fontana wrote:
> 
> When (many years ago now) I referred to copyleft-next as "non-weak"
> rather than "strong" I think it was because I was starting to despair
> that copyleft-next couldn't be practically implemented in such a way
> that a GPL vs LGPL sort of distinction would be meaningful. (I
> remember someone playfully accusing me of adopting the views of Larry
> Rosen.) However I don't necessarily think that now.

Heh.  I remember spending many hours in bars debating with FSF
apologists about whether a GPL-licensed library would infect across
the library interface, and they would claim that it didn't matter
whether the library was statically or dynamically linked using a
shared library.  At which point I would ask whether the GPL would also
infect across an RPC call, and if that meant the FSF was in favor of
interface copyrights.

Good times, back when I had more spare time for such debates.  :-)

     	    	      	    	       - Ted

From lunacolon3 at proton.me  Wed Jul 15 03:53:26 2026
From: lunacolon3 at proton.me (Luna)
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2026 03:53:26 +0000
Subject: Fwd: Re: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <m7t8heLO8KGBsrclG5Nh_jJoDkYL2JGtWktwYzclg9vqgUexMq_GAkAkwaK5o8Rjarjh53h64aCLr_E_yJeNs-YYtjfaD2arXaYu4MKNPeA=@proton.me>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
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Message-ID: <4zuqecJl6LH1-c3K4r6lrmPBo8aCW049m-bZNf5yeBCpo6jLkhqbOpZ4PM9dLqIixukUUWD3T8U5V2h34rzvOmulxZjpJPEntXJVgYTrzc8=@proton.me>

i accidentally clicked reply instead of reply all ;-;

Bradley M. Kühn <bkuhn at ebb.org> wrote:

> Nevertheless, it's unclear to me about the library thing.  glibc
> needed LGPLv2.1 because there were *so many* libc implementations
> that there was no chance that anyone was going to use a GPLv2'd C
> library with so many other options available (which remained true for
> decades — the number of times libc has been reimplemented … 🤦 … but
> that's OT. 😀)

A license like the LGPL could still be useful for libraries that have
a lot of competition. I especially feel like it could be useful for
Rust and Node.js projects because they tend to reuse code more. I think
there would be lots of opportunities to make a better alternative to a
permissively licensed library and release it under a weak copyleft, but
it would likely get very little use if it was under a strong copyleft.
I know popularity shouldn't always dictate stuff like this, but it sways
a lot of people.

> Ultimately, weak copylefts and non-copyleft licenses can be so easily
> manipulated by a single company or a cartel of companies so that only
> some but not all of the code is available.

I've only seen that with file-based copyleft licenses, not the LGPL.

I think that weak copyleft will continue to be used no matter what,
and that if copyleft-next just encourages developers to write their
own exceptions there could be dozens of variations that say the same
thing. Publishing an official weak copyleft exception would reduce
license proliferation.

Luna

From till.jaeger at ifross.de  Wed Jul 15 08:52:27 2026
From: till.jaeger at ifross.de (Till Jaeger)
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:52:27 +0200
Subject: Fwd: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <albnxWtDVOqwGhDk@mit.edu>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
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 <albnxWtDVOqwGhDk@mit.edu>
Message-ID: <be95c92c-7102-4e72-b670-b929ae4aa62f@ifross.de>

>> When (many years ago now) I referred to copyleft-next as "non-weak"
>> rather than "strong" I think it was because I was starting to despair
>> that copyleft-next couldn't be practically implemented in such a way
>> that a GPL vs LGPL sort of distinction would be meaningful. (I
>> remember someone playfully accusing me of adopting the views of Larry
>> Rosen.) However I don't necessarily think that now.
> 
> Heh.  I remember spending many hours in bars debating with FSF
> apologists about whether a GPL-licensed library would infect across
> the library interface, and they would claim that it didn't matter
> whether the library was statically or dynamically linked using a
> shared library.  At which point I would ask whether the GPL would also
> infect across an RPC call, and if that meant the FSF was in favor of
> interface copyrights.
I believe the premise is incorrect: the same technical connection 
between two software components does not necessarily have to be treated 
the same way under copyright law. I know this view is unpopular with 
many developers because it requires a case-by-case assessment. However, 
a comparison of system libraries and libraries developed solely for a 
single application already shows that there can indeed be relevant 
differences.

Best,
Till

From berrange at redhat.com  Wed Jul 15 10:03:44 2026
From: berrange at redhat.com (Daniel =?utf-8?B?UC4gQmVycmFuZ8Op?=)
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:03:44 +0100
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <albi5_-ap5rgZFw6@ebb.org>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
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Message-ID: <aldbAH3tYnn81H1G@redhat.com>

On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 06:31:19PM -0700, Bradley M. Kühn wrote:
> First, to answer Ted's question from myself (Richard already answered
> from his perspective upthread): I was thinking of the whole class
> of weak copylefts from “very weak” to “somewhat weak” (i.e., MPL,
> EPL, LGPL, and the Classpath Exception² too).
> 
> Folks will be surprised to learn that these days — at least until we
> release copyleft-next 1.0 — LGPLv2.1 is my favorite copyleft license,
> for various reasons.  I like it more than GPLv[23] now. 🤭
> 
> Nevertheless, it's unclear to me about the library thing.  glibc
> needed LGPLv2.1 because there were *so many* libc implementations
> that there was no chance that anyone was going to use a GPLv2'd C
> library with so many other options available (which remained true for
> decades — the number of times libc has been reimplemented … 🤦 … but
> that's OT. 😀)
> 
> While there was a period of time when I was a paid representative of
> the FSF and avoided saying so publicly, (and Ted will probably like
> to learn this, as he and I debated this long ago when I
> worked for FSF): IMO, FSF *erred* (& continues to err) by insisting
> libreadline stay GPLvN-or-later rather than moving to
> LGPLv2.1-or-later after libedit caught up.
> 
> What I'm wondering, though, is, given what's happening in computing,
> as development cycles becoming shorter and shorter (for various
> reasons, including but not limited to LLM-gen-AI assistance),
> re-implementing an API from scratch is a lot easier than it once was.

LLMs re-implementing an project from scratch is a neat trick, but whether
that makes it any more useful to do in practice remains far from obvious.

A successful OSS project is about more than just the code. The expert
knowledge and relationships between the community of maintainers and
contributors is key, as well as all the other parts the go into the
operation of the project. Forking an OSS project is not something to be
taken lightly. While LLMs can make pulling a "clean room" trick easier,
I don't think that significantly alters the cost/benefi tradeoff when
considering forking a project. It strikes me that many people who try
the LLM clean room trick will just end up learning the hard way that
a successful project is about more than just the code.

IOW, I don't think the ability to more easily re-impl a project should
be a major factor in deciding licensing preferences.



I've created and maintained several C libraries under the LGPL, with
the rationale that I want them used as widely as possible. While I can
understand the POV that if I had made it GPL, it would encourage some
applications to be GPL too, I question how strong that effect would be
in practice.

By making the libs accessible to all apps via use of LGPL, we have
had usage from proprietary apps, and many of those app developers have
made significant contributions to the OSS library they depend on. That
IMHO has been a bigger net win for the project over the long term.


In terms of the broad changes in computing and software architectures,
the role for the LGPL (as written )looks to be increasingly squeezed.
I don't think that means weak copyleft is obsolete, just that the LGPL's
specific expression of weak copyleft is not an ideal fit anymore.


The use of traditional shared libraries appears an increasingly niche
concept. In modern computing (micro)services communicating over sockets
are everywhere, from low level OS components using DBus RPC APIs, to
high level apps using HTTP(S) REST APIs.

Where an application does link to a library, that library is increasingly
just a dumb stub to marshal data into RPC call. The "interesting" logic
is all in the server and you can use a strong GPL or AGPL license for
that part, as it has no impact on license choices for apps consuming it
as a client.


On the client side, if the project ships client libraries, is a weak
copyleft like the LGPL useful ? IMHO if you used GPL for the client
part, apps that don't want to be GPL-compatible will rewrite the
client RPC marshalling code in a license that suits them better. This
was generally pretty easy even without LLMs around. That could be an
argument for using the LGPL for the client part, so it remains copyleft
while removing the incentive for rewrites under a permissive license...

...except this then comes up against the new language ecosystems and
softare distribution mechanisms where static linking is back in
fashion. Most notably for Rust and Golang, most things gets static
linked and thus the application code can be said to be subject to
the LGPL terms. This rather defeats the supposed benefit of the
LGPL over the GPL for a library written in Rust/Golang.


Overall I would still have a preference for the entire of my code
bases to be copyleft (open to either weak or strong depending on
the context) rather permissive, but IMHO as written the GPL vs LGPL
distinction is less useful than it needs to be.

If starting my library projects again I might be inclined to make
use of something like the LGPL-3.0 linking exception, which explicitly
permits static linking without the app bcoming subject to the library
license, as a way to make it more viable in the Rust/Go-like ecosystems
where static linking is the norm.


As a more general conceptual point, given that they are the same family,
I have always found it awkward that the GPL and LGPL are completely
separate documents, especially given their huge length.

I don't know the history of why they were written this way, but for ease
of developer understanding, I would prefer to see one core text for the
strong copyleft license, and a standard concise exception that could be
applied to suit the "weak copyleft" scenario.

With regards,
Daniel
-- 
|: https://berrange.com       ~~        https://hachyderm.io/@berrange :|
|: https://libvirt.org          ~~          https://entangle-photo.org :|
|: https://pixelfed.art/berrange   ~~    https://fstop138.berrange.com :|


From tytso at mit.edu  Wed Jul 15 14:28:44 2026
From: tytso at mit.edu (Theodore Tso)
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:28:44 -0400
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <albi5_-ap5rgZFw6@ebb.org>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>
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 <albi5_-ap5rgZFw6@ebb.org>
Message-ID: <aleO1bQpCTLRZXRb@mit.edu>

On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 06:31:19PM -0500, Bradley M. Kühn wrote:
> While there was a period of time when I was a paid representative of
> the FSF and avoided saying so publicly, (and Ted will probably like
> to learn this, as he and I debated this long ago when I
> worked for FSF):

It wasn't just you; I remember having this debate with Jeremy Allison,
for example.

> IMO, FSF *erred* (& continues to err) by insisting
> libreadline stay GPLvN-or-later rather than moving to
> LGPLv2.1-or-later after libedit caught up.

As far as I'm concerned, FSF had every right to decide whether or not
libreadline was under GPL or LGPL.  One could argue that libreadline
had many more features than libedit and libeditline and so it was
deserving of GPL protection lest proprietary software could take
advantage of it.

What I objected to do with the FSF argument that the GPL infected
across shared library links, which made aboslutely no sense vis-a-vis
U.S. copyright law.  The argument seemed to be that as long as the GPL
and proprietary code was in the same address space copyright would
apply, even though no distribution was happening at that point.  (At
which point I would start asking whether GPL and proprietary code in
the same physical memory would also be a GPL violation, or the same
local area network, or in the same globally connected Internet, etc.)

> Nevertheless, it's unclear to me about the library thing.  glibc
> needed LGPLv2.1 because there were *so many* libc implementations
> that there was no chance that anyone was going to use a GPLv2'd C
> library with so many other options available (which remained true for
> decades — the number of times libc has been reimplemented … 🤦 … but
> that's OT. 😀)
> 
> However, Ted does raise an interesting point: can anyone think of an
> example of a project that uses the LGPL in the way that I describe?
> 🤔 Maybe it's an exception to my “no weak copyleft” rule?

I don't think it's a just matter of whether a libary is reimplemented
with multiply different licenses, whether it's weak copyleft, strong
copyleft, or permissive.  It's also about whether we think there are
people who release libraries where they want that library to be *used*
regardless of whether it is proprietary or FOSS, but they want
improvements to the library to be contributed back the upstream
version of that library.  For example, this is why I made the
conscious choice to license libext2fs under the LGPL.

If you believe that clean room reimplementation means that the license
of libraries to matter much less, then the library case might be much
less interesting.

(There are multiple questions that this begs, such as whether the use
of LLM's as a copyright stripper counts as clean room, and whether you
need to reimplement *all* of the library, or just the subset of the
functionality that is needed by the program in question etc.  I'd also
add the related question if a human takes a code snippet from Stack
Overflow, and rename variables, and it's for something super basic,
such as say, an insertion sort, is copyright implicated, and does it
make a difference whether a human or a LLM does that adaption?)

> What I'm wondering, though, is, given what's happening in computing,
> as development cycles becoming shorter and shorter (for various
> reasons, including but not limited to LLM-gen-AI assistance),
> re-implementing an API from scratch is a lot easier than it once was.

If the library is really easy to reimplement, sure, copyright matters
a lot less.  While the vast majority of the abandonware on sourceforge
or github, and maybe a large part of CPAN or PyPI are pretty
simplisitic.  But I would argue that complex libraries do still exist
and that's precisely where a library author might want to strongly
encourage that improvements be contributed back and merged, and this
would become a virtuous circle making it even harder to be
reimplemented.

And in the case where that complex library is an interface to an
implementation which is changing over time (for example, when we add
new features to the ext4 file system, the libext2fs implementation
will be changed to match), and a reimplementation of that
functionality (for example in Grub) will be left behind, and it causes
problems for Grub users.

(It doesn't help that when I go out of my way to send patches to Grub
in one case it took almost **two years** before that change made it
out into a release and into distributions.  This is where if Grub used
a standard library, all a distro would need to do is to recompile Grub
and users would be good.  This is a case where the license
incompatibility between GPL 3 and LGPL 2 really bit users in the *ss.
Oh, well...)

> Finally, yes, I know that for-profit companies love non-copylefted
> code.  So what?  We've been kowtowing to "oh, Big Tech, please
> adopt our software and fund it!" for decades.  What has it gotten
> us?  A bunch of underfunded maintainers, and a precious few who
> are well funded but hopelessly overworked.

This is a real problem, but I'd argue the probleem exists for
copylefted code as well.  There are a number of GPL'ed code bases
(coreutils, emacs, etc) that are arguably underfunded.  The license
may not be the strong determinant about whether companies will fund
FOSS project or not, or whether there will be plenty of community
contributions.

In the cases where enthusiastic GPL enforcement via lawsuits has
spawed reimplemented software such as in Busybox and Toybox, one could
argue that a stronger copyleft, whether it by the license text or how
aggressively people decide to use lawsuits or not, the question of how
trivial it is to reimplement a software project such as Busybox is
probably far more determinative.  And has the stronger copyleft
enforcement really improved the number of contributions to Busybox?

						- Ted

From bkuhn at ebb.org  Sat Jul 18 02:42:26 2026
From: bkuhn at ebb.org (Bradley =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=2E_K=FChn?=)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2026 19:42:26 -0700
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <aleO1bQpCTLRZXRb@mit.edu>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>
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 <albi5_-ap5rgZFw6@ebb.org> <aleO1bQpCTLRZXRb@mit.edu>
Message-ID: <alroErDPzObvqS3j@ebb.org>

Theodore Tso wrote:
> What I objected to do with the FSF argument that the GPL infected
> across shared library links, which made aboslutely no sense
> vis-a-vis U.S. copyright law.

[citation needed]

What case or statute speaks to this?

The only one I'm aware of that pushes this envelope a little is the
Apple. v. Psystar, in which Apple successfully argued that separately
distributed modules that dynamically linked with Apple's software
required Apple's permission.

> The argument seemed to be that as long as the GPL and proprietary
> code was in the same address space copyright would apply, even
> though no distribution was happening at that point.

No Court has fully and completely considered this issue.  As I've
told you for decades, on this vector, copyleft will extend as far as
copyright (or its case law) takes it.  We don't get to decide that,
the Courts and legislators do.

OTOH, rarely has anyone *actually* wanted to test that, anyway.  It's
not the place where software freedom was most directly impacted.

> This is a case where the license incompatibility between GPL 3 and
> LGPL 2 really bit users in the *ss.

Please don't get me started on that.  I sent an email to everyone
with authority over the final text of GPLv3 at the end of the GPLv3
process (but before it was released) pointing out that that it was as
disaster that LGPLv2.1-only was incompatible with GPLv3.  Nobody
cared except Richard Fontana.  See, there's a reason he and I are
here 20 years later as the two working on this project, and everyone
else involved in GPLv3 don't work on copyleft drafting anymore. 😆

> This is a real problem, but I'd argue the probleem exists for
> copylefted code as well.  There are a number of GPL'ed code bases
> (coreutils, emacs, etc) that are arguably underfunded.  The license
> may not be the strong determinant about whether companies will fund
> FOSS project or not, or whether there will be plenty of community
> contributions.

Agreed, but my argument wasn't an if-and-only-if style.  Copyleft
doesn't solve all of the world's problems, only some of them.  My
point was that Big Tech is, in most cases, not more likely to fund an
LGPLv2.1'd thing over a GPLv3'd thing.  I probably depends a *lot*
more on the thing than its license, and ultimately non-copyleft
generally allows for projects to get funding — but only for stuff
that doesn't compete with what the companies want to proprietarize.

> And has the stronger copyleft enforcement really improved the
> number of contributions to Busybox?

The above (and the entire paragraph that it finished) is really just
a troll so let's leave it there.
--
     -- bkühn — he/them — On Fediverse (via Mastodon): https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn

From bkuhn at ebb.org  Sat Jul 18 02:55:53 2026
From: bkuhn at ebb.org (Bradley =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=2E_K=FChn?=)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2026 19:55:53 -0700
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <aldbAH3tYnn81H1G@redhat.com>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
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 <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>
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 <albi5_-ap5rgZFw6@ebb.org> <aldbAH3tYnn81H1G@redhat.com>
Message-ID: <alrrOaFtfKU5GSxV@ebb.org>

Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> I've created and maintained several C libraries under the LGPL,
> with the rationale that I want them used as widely as possible.

I think what I'm really questioning is whether this is a model that
exists in the modern world of software.

Are *new* LGPLv2.1'd libraries likely to get adopted (and funded) by
proprietary vendors?  Do we have any ideas for how to make that
happen?

I guess it's also a question of priorities.  Making a weak copyleft
is actually a lot harder than it looks (unless you want it to be
pathetically weak like the Classpath Exception — and I say that as
one of its co-authors!).

I'm doing a panel discussion next month at FOSSY 2026 about the GCC
RTLE.  I co-wrote that too (and Richard Fontana was involved for part
its drafting, too).  GCC RTLE works — more or less — but it's way too
clever for its own good.  And, despite best efforts, FSF couldn't
convince Apple that GCC RTLE suited their licensing needs so they'd
keep contributing to GCC.  Apple instead literally used the GCC RTLE
as part of its internal justification to finally go all-in on LLVM.

Like, I'm sort-of proud of the GCC RTLE because of its cleverness,
but that experience really taught me that Additional Permissions (be
they formalized in an LGPL-like thing or ad-hoc like the Classpath
Exception) just generate more questions than answers for those who
want to build something proprietary and incorporate the Work.

The magic of the LGPLv2.1, frankly, is the fact that very few really
have a deep understanding of LGPLv2.1, but everyone has some
assumptions about what its requirements are.  Literally, like two
months ago, I realized something really complicated and important
about the LGPLv2.1 that I had not realized after *30 years* of
reading it all the way through at least once a month (on average).

In theory, weak copyleft is great.  In practice, weak copylefts
quickly become impenetrable documents that folks squint at and
pretend they're some beautiful middle ground.

Anyway, I'm curious if Richard agrees, but it seems to me there is
probably zero chance we'll try to develop a weak copyleft alongside
copyleft-next 1.0.  If nothing else, I've hopefully proven in this
thread that creating a *good* weak copyleft is at least order of
magnitude harder than creating a good non-weak (to use Richard's
phrase) copyleft.  So, maybe we should just close this thread and
revive it immediately after copyleft-next 1.0 is released. 😀
--
     -- bkühn — he/them — On Fediverse (via Mastodon): https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn

From fontana at sharpeleven.org  Sat Jul 18 03:18:19 2026
From: fontana at sharpeleven.org (Richard Fontana)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2026 23:18:19 -0400
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <alrrOaFtfKU5GSxV@ebb.org>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>
 <CAGT84B0wsafTO2EgzWh_cfvGbpnaaNnee0Pu1N30aT0GeW0snw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAGT84B1QP+9WWSrnnkpnfipuGjFcHUoCNRK9aJ3j07JOvFUfXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <albi5_-ap5rgZFw6@ebb.org> <aldbAH3tYnn81H1G@redhat.com>
 <alrrOaFtfKU5GSxV@ebb.org>
Message-ID: <CAGT84B1BXdEXux6Tbxj3vOfWDVKC7XjWh0Yq7nk8gvUqKD1Jcg@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 10:58 PM Bradley M. Kühn <bkuhn at ebb.org> wrote:
>
> Anyway, I'm curious if Richard agrees, but it seems to me there is
> probably zero chance we'll try to develop a weak copyleft alongside
> copyleft-next 1.0.

I have an open mind on this, but I wouldn't treat it as a priority.

Richard

From till.jaeger at ifross.de  Mon Jul 20 14:12:37 2026
From: till.jaeger at ifross.de (Till Jaeger)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:12:37 +0200
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <alroErDPzObvqS3j@ebb.org>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>
 <CAGT84B0wsafTO2EgzWh_cfvGbpnaaNnee0Pu1N30aT0GeW0snw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAGT84B1QP+9WWSrnnkpnfipuGjFcHUoCNRK9aJ3j07JOvFUfXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <albi5_-ap5rgZFw6@ebb.org> <aleO1bQpCTLRZXRb@mit.edu>
 <alroErDPzObvqS3j@ebb.org>
Message-ID: <c29db128-0ccf-4e22-8506-a0e196f8a087@ifross.de>

>> This is a case where the license incompatibility between GPL 3 and
>> LGPL 2 really bit users in the *ss.
> Please don't get me started on that.  I sent an email to everyone
> with authority over the final text of GPLv3 at the end of the GPLv3
> process (but before it was released) pointing out that that it was as
> disaster that LGPLv2.1-only was incompatible with GPLv3.  Nobody
> cared except Richard Fontana.  See, there's a reason he and I are
> here 20 years later as the two working on this project, and everyone
> else involved in GPLv3 don't work on copyleft drafting anymore. 😆
>
I'm not sure I understand this correctly.

Sec. 3 LGPL-2.1 reads as follows:

/"You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public 
License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do 
this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that 
they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2, 
instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the 
ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify 
that version instead if you wish.) "/

Copyright owners using typical license headers as the following (from libnl)

/"* This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
* modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
* Licenseas published by the Free Software Foundation version 2.1
* of the License."/

try to exclude the permission to "relicense" under the LGPL-3.0 but why 
should that exclude the permission to relicense under GPL-2.0 or GPL-3.0?

Accordingly, I do not see a problem to link a GPL-3.0 licensed 
application with a LGPL-2.1-only licensed library by using the whole 
under GPL-3.0.

Do you mean any other use case?

Best,

Till
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From fontana at sharpeleven.org  Mon Jul 20 14:56:59 2026
From: fontana at sharpeleven.org (Richard Fontana)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:56:59 -0400
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <c29db128-0ccf-4e22-8506-a0e196f8a087@ifross.de>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>
 <CAGT84B0wsafTO2EgzWh_cfvGbpnaaNnee0Pu1N30aT0GeW0snw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAGT84B1QP+9WWSrnnkpnfipuGjFcHUoCNRK9aJ3j07JOvFUfXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <albi5_-ap5rgZFw6@ebb.org> <aleO1bQpCTLRZXRb@mit.edu>
 <alroErDPzObvqS3j@ebb.org>
 <c29db128-0ccf-4e22-8506-a0e196f8a087@ifross.de>
Message-ID: <CAGT84B3KTFJe8PeGeLvckHoQke8JfkJjZKzrpB3_KnCBTi-vgQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 10:12 AM Till Jaeger <till.jaeger at ifross.de> wrote:
>
> This is a case where the license incompatibility between GPL 3 and
> LGPL 2 really bit users in the *ss.
>
> Please don't get me started on that.  I sent an email to everyone
> with authority over the final text of GPLv3 at the end of the GPLv3
> process (but before it was released) pointing out that that it was as
> disaster that LGPLv2.1-only was incompatible with GPLv3.  Nobody
> cared except Richard Fontana.  See, there's a reason he and I are
> here 20 years later as the two working on this project, and everyone
> else involved in GPLv3 don't work on copyleft drafting anymore. 😆
>
> I'm not sure I understand this correctly.
>
> Sec. 3 LGPL-2.1 reads as follows:
>
> "You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2, instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify that version instead if you wish.) "
>
> Copyright owners using typical license headers as the following (from libnl)
>
> "* This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
> * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
> * License as published by the Free Software Foundation version 2.1
> * of the License."
>
> try to exclude the permission to "relicense" under the LGPL-3.0 but why should that exclude the permission to relicense under GPL-2.0 or GPL-3.0?
>
> Accordingly, I do not see a problem to link a GPL-3.0 licensed application with a LGPL-2.1-only licensed library by using the whole under GPL-3.0.
>
> Do you mean any other use case?

Maybe thinking of LGPLv3/GPLv2-only incompatiblity rather than
LGPLv2.1-only/GPLv3 ? This was an issue that was raised late in the
GPLv3 drafting process in mid-2007, I think particularly because it
was then anticipated that glibc might be relicensed to LGPLv3. I know
Bradley has in some past situations encouraged certain projects to use
LGPLv3|GPLv2 as a way to address this.

Of course, LGPLv2.x section 3 has almost never been literally complied
with by any project, but in FOSS folk-understanding it is seen as the
(or a) basis for intuitive LGPLv2.x/GPL compatibility.

Richard







>
> Best,
>
> Till
>
> _______________________________________________
> next mailing list
> next at lists.copyleft.org
> https://lists.copyleft.org/mailman/listinfo/next

From tytso at mit.edu  Tue Jul 21 11:41:38 2026
From: tytso at mit.edu (Theodore Tso)
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2026 07:41:38 -0400
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <CAGT84B1BXdEXux6Tbxj3vOfWDVKC7XjWh0Yq7nk8gvUqKD1Jcg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ndMNl_p27DS7EHb6MJrjRQFa7Sz2obLw85Nydz4E_GSEh-KYpVSGStewh2d4utlqej6HBpojE1PObQRj28ggqO6st9daH6j6rEIu3ztf5N0=@proton.me>
 <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>
 <CAGT84B0wsafTO2EgzWh_cfvGbpnaaNnee0Pu1N30aT0GeW0snw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAGT84B1QP+9WWSrnnkpnfipuGjFcHUoCNRK9aJ3j07JOvFUfXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <albi5_-ap5rgZFw6@ebb.org> <aldbAH3tYnn81H1G@redhat.com>
 <alrrOaFtfKU5GSxV@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B1BXdEXux6Tbxj3vOfWDVKC7XjWh0Yq7nk8gvUqKD1Jcg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <al9aj7HYySDkB4AI@mit.edu>

On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 11:18:19PM -0500, Richard Fontana wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 10:58???PM Bradley M. K??hn <bkuhn at ebb.org> wrote:
> >
> > Anyway, I'm curious if Richard agrees, but it seems to me there is
> > probably zero chance we'll try to develop a weak copyleft alongside
> > copyleft-next 1.0.
> 
> I have an open mind on this, but I wouldn't treat it as a priority.

Sure, I suspect those people who care about libraries getting as much
use as possible would be OK with using the LGPL2 (that is the default
option, after all).  What's more interestig to me is whether
copyleft-next will be compatible with [L]GPL[23], since the
incompatibility between GPL3 and LGPL2 has certainly caused problems
(such as the grub example that I've cited).

      	     	  	       	    - Ted

From bkuhn at ebb.org  Wed Jul 22 15:34:25 2026
From: bkuhn at ebb.org (Bradley =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=2E_K=FChn?=)
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:34:25 -0700
Subject: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to
 copyleft-next)
In-Reply-To: <CAGT84B3KTFJe8PeGeLvckHoQke8JfkJjZKzrpB3_KnCBTi-vgQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <alRJmAJuo9l9lo6M@ebb.org>
 <CAGT84B18zJRg=F=cRCSehZ1KhePjRj6jfk1619oUTEMJ5O5YRg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alW8Up_O7S6UAulO@mit.edu>
 <CAGT84B0wsafTO2EgzWh_cfvGbpnaaNnee0Pu1N30aT0GeW0snw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAGT84B1QP+9WWSrnnkpnfipuGjFcHUoCNRK9aJ3j07JOvFUfXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <albi5_-ap5rgZFw6@ebb.org> <aleO1bQpCTLRZXRb@mit.edu>
 <alroErDPzObvqS3j@ebb.org>
 <c29db128-0ccf-4e22-8506-a0e196f8a087@ifross.de>
 <CAGT84B3KTFJe8PeGeLvckHoQke8JfkJjZKzrpB3_KnCBTi-vgQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <amDjAThw9PuGB846@ebb.org>

Till, Richard, thanks for identifying my typos in version numbers.

Till asked:
> > Do you mean any other use case?
Richard replied:
> Maybe thinking of LGPLv3/GPLv2-only incompatiblity rather than
> LGPLv2.1-only/GPLv3 ? This was an issue that was raised late in the
> GPLv3 drafting process in mid-2007, I think particularly because it
> was then anticipated that glibc might be relicensed to LGPLv3. I know
> Bradley has in some past situations encouraged certain projects to use
> LGPLv3|GPLv2 as a way to address this.

Indeed, I was talking of LGPLv3-or-later being incompatible with
GPLv2-only.  Richard summarized above what I meant to talk about but
had the LGPL and GPL version numbers swapped so my earlier post was
nonsensical.  Thanks for the correction.

Fontana wrote:
> Of course, LGPLv2.x section 3 has almost never been literally
> complied with by any project, but in FOSS folk-understanding it is
> seen as the (or a) basis for intuitive LGPLv2.x/GPL compatibility.

The LGPLv2.1 is otherwise a great license other than that.  This idea
of changing notices was a mistake from the start — but most of us
know why RMS was such a big fan of it.  We definitely don't want to
encourage notice-changing in copyleft-next!  It's error-prone and
silly.

--
     -- bkühn — he/them — On Fediverse (via Mastodon): https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn

From bkuhn at ebb.org  Thu Jul 23 00:49:31 2026
From: bkuhn at ebb.org (Bradley =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=2E_K=FChn?=)
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2026 17:49:31 -0700
Subject: Code of Conduct review window closing SUN 2026-07-19
In-Reply-To: <aj8TdxAGqN9EEtO0@ebb.org>
References: <ajS4fAj3PjbDSvO3@ebb.org>
 <cd6fbb06-f130-4f29-a299-282e9ad2b377@aethrvmn.gr>
 <CAJox117-hnH5GztrDVtXbhN+QDoCs95duHWtS1vy5b1XbihKow@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAGT84B0SZeQoRc4MP-EPDq9Yw4-DcKO6xpaejLt5QdNN7fWwSg@mail.gmail.com>
 <aj8TdxAGqN9EEtO0@ebb.org>
Message-ID: <amFlG6m8OO1TJ2Dm@ebb.org>


I've made some minor updates to the copyleft-next CoC based on
feedback received here and in the pull request at
https://git.copyleft.org/copyleft-next/code-of-conduct/pulls/1

Please note any final comments here or in the pull request.

On Sunday night US/Pacific, I'm going to merge it and make it the
official CoC for the project.

I will also get the email address working, at that time, which it
does not currently.
--
     -- bkühn — he/them — On Fediverse (via Mastodon): https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn

