RE: WineX and the AFPL

> On May 31, 2002 05:14 am, Patrik Stridvall wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> This is BS. Pure and simple. By the same rationale, you 
> should have your
> crusade of not having any laws. Bullocks.

Laws usually doesn't usually force people to do good things.
They are mostly for preventing people from making bad things
or rather to prevent people your extracting revenge when
bad things happend to them or their friends.
 
> We've been through this before, and I find this kind of 
> argument stupid.
> It has no shred of value IMO, and I think it's complete waste of time.

That is probably because you doesn't understand it.

Hint: The problem with ALL business modules is that predicting the futures
is hard, so obviously the more options you have in the future the better.
Closing the door in the beginning to no gain is obviously a bad idea.
 
> > 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, _all_ new licenses will have this problem. Again, 
> by the same 
> rationale, one would never create a new license because it's 
> not tested 
> in court. 

The LGPL specifically have as I said earlier the extra problem that
what it tries to accieve isn't well defined in itself regardless
of what the law permits. 

Sure it will be more well defined after what the law permits is defined,
but that is not the same thing.

> The (L)GPL is a *widely* used license, and the fact 
> that it hasn't
> been tested in court really shows how solid it is.

No it doesn't. It means that nobody have had enough incentive to
either do things that possibly violate it or that possible violators
haven't been sued because it either isn't worth it or the copyright
holder doesn't care or that they doesn't interpret the license to
prevent whatever what was done.
 
> > 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.
> 
> Of course I do. I agree with the principle behind the LGPL. 
> And IIRC, we've
> already agreed that the LGPL is the best (to our knowledge) 
> incarnation of
> a license that captures that principle. 
> So WTF is the 
> problem? Either email
> a new license that you think it's better than the LGPL (which 
> formalizes the
> same principle), or shut up. Simply bitching about stuff nobody can do
> anything about is just a waste of everyones time.

Please. Just because the LGPL solves some of the issues that you 
think is important doesn't mean that the license doesn't have any
important drawbacks.

Some problems is very easy to solve in themselves, but the obvious
solution might create more problems. In fact some problem can't be
solved at all without creating even worse problems.

If your neighbour is playing to loud music late at night so you can't sleep,
visting him, killing him (and his family) and then turning the music off
will solve the problem with the loud music. However doing it is obviously
not a good idea...

> > 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.
> 
> "There is nothing to say" ... Ohhhhh, I can't begin to tell 
> you how much
> I fscking hate this way of arguing. For crying out loud 
> Patrick, you do
> two very interesting things:
>   1) require absolute proof for things that are obvious for a 
> 5 year old
>   2) discuss ad infinitum possibilities that are so remote nobody
>        really gives a fsck.

The Whiskey consumption and the number of priest in Ireland during the
19th century correlate with each other almost perfectly IIRC.

However there is no reason to believe that there is a connection.

Correlation doesn't imply causality.

Sure in the case of Wine patches it could be a connection.
But it is be up to YOU to prove it. Not I.

In any case one thing that indicates that it might not be so is
that most developers have giving permission to Rewind to use their
code and thus they still effectively use the X11 license.

So I think you have to find the reason for the increase elsewhere.

> And this drives me up the wall. This is a very good atitude 
> in scientific
> circles, here the opposite is true -- just annoyes the hell 
> out of people.
> Just a word for the wise...

:-)

Well:
You claim benifits with the LGPL, you provide the proof.

And do not try to reverse the burden of proof.
Look at the LPGL a possible medicin for an illness (lack of cooperation).
Exacly like the testing out new medicin the burden lies
on the manufacturer of medicin not the reverse.