Re: ANN: Lush 2.0 beta release

Yann LeCun <[email protected]> Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:45:05 -0400
Newsgroups gmane.lisp.lush.devel
Organization Courant Institute, NYU
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Raymond,

Great! I'm glad that's cleared up.

  -- Yann

On Monday 19 October 2009, Raymond Martin wrote:
> Yann
>
> > We actually got persmission from all the people we could think of.
> >
> > We think a lot more people would use Lush in industrial contexts
> > if we switched to the LGPL.
> >
> > We knew you contributed to the documentation, which is really not
> > affected by the license, but I guess we overlooked your contributions
> > to the code.
> >
> > Would you give your permission for the switch, as far as your
> > contributions are concerned?  If not, we will just take out your
> > contributions, but that would be a shame.
>
> I have no problem with giving permission. Although, it would have been an
> idea to post this proposed change in a transparent manner on the list, I
> believe. Unfortunately I think it is impossible to convert from GPL to LGPL
> without full permission of all parties that ever contributed. GPL is sort
> of a one-way license on this.
>
> FYI, all the documentation was under GPL, there was no other license.
> So that too has been converted to LGPL in this case.
>
> In the past when I brought up the possibility of changing the license
> for the docs, Leon pointed out that it would be pretty hard to determine
> who had actually contributed and get permission. So it was to be left
> as it was. I don't imagine it has gotten easier to locate contributors
> since the time of my asking.
>
> In any event, my point is just that this seems to be getting a little ahead
> of itself if licenses are changed without full permissions, thus causing
> distribution to be violating license terms. It currently, and in the
> future, may be in violation if this is done without 100% agreement from all
> contributors.
>
> I mean, do as you will. I certainly think LGPL is better for Lush as a
> programming language. The problem is that people contributed under
> the GPL, with the belief (conscious/unconscious?) that those contributions
> would only be used in a non-commercial way (aside from end users running
> the program for whatever reason). This is where GPL is one-way on this.
>
> It might be a problem at some future point. Hope you got all those
> permissions in writing to change over to LGPL. You can consider this email
> as my permission in writing to change over any contributions I made or will
> make. Maybe get others to send similar emails as proof, if you don't have
> something already?
>
> Raymond



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