Fwd: Re: Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to copyleft-next)

[Luna]

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