RE: WineX and the AFPL

> On May 30, 2002 12:45 pm, Patrik Stridvall wrote:
> > The primary thing that have happend is that Transgaming have stopped
> > contributing. I don't see how you can call that a good 
> thing let alone
> > a proof.
> >
> > Then you know nothing about companies that what thinking 
> about investing
> > in Wine but didn't because of the LGPL.
> 
> Patrick,
> You seem to have this interesting habit of completely 
> ignoring what's going
> on around you, and focusing on the remotely probable events, 
> as if the world
> is actually made of all said events. 

Obviously the future of the world and Wine for that matter
consist of all possible events even the improbably ones.

The trick is prune away things that are less important and probable
and try to focus on the more important and probable. Of course
this is easier said that done.

That said, I think, I'm as much aware of what happends as you are.
The main difference between us is that we interpret what happends
or might happend in a different way. See below.
 
> I'll say this again: we are not interested in what's possible 
> (as pretty much
> anything is), but in what's probable. Companies giving up 
> because of the
> license change? Ha! I find this laughable. And again, even if 
> it's true,
> *I DO NOT CARE*. Why? Because it means they did not intend to 
> contribute.
> They can die, for all I care. They are not worth discussing. 

You are oversimplifying.

Intending to do "good" is one thing in the future is one thing, being
able to do "good" when the future actually happends is another thing.

Forcing people do "good" that are not able to is not a good idea.

> The LGPL and
> the DLL separating provides them with more than enough space 
> to maneuver.
> Period. I find arguments of the type "yeah, but they might 
> *think* they can't
> because they are stupid and don't understand the license" 
> idiotic. 

It provides a lot of space to maneuver. True.

However exacly how much room to maneuver is given is not well defined
and for that matter can't be, since what the license tries to accieve
is not well defined either.

That I don't like. No lawyer can be absolutely sure what is allowed or
not since that is dependent on how far copyright reaches, which have
not been properly determined in the courts yet.

Obviously you must believe that the LGPL actually gives you something
otherwise you wouldn't support it would you? So the space to manuever
can't be that large in your opinion can it. Otherwise everybody can
just safely circumvent any restrictions.

> If so, what
> contributions can we expect from them if they are soooo stupid??? <g>

In any case. Just because the mangement (or lawyers) is stupid doesn't mean
that the developers are.

Again you are oversimplifying or rather is this case generalizing.
 
> But here's a reality check for you: haven't you noticed how 
> many patches
> have gone in lately??? You like Perl, make a statistic on # 
> patches, and #
> of lines changed per month for the last year, say...

I need not. I also have had the feeling that the amount of patches
have increased compared to year before. Of course I have had this
feeling every year, but I think the increase this year is slightly
higher...

However there is nothing that says that the LGPL have something to
do with this. Especially since most developers (excluding CodeWeavers)
still release their patches under the X11 license so Rewind can use it.