Re: Licence guidance

Are you sure that's a wise choice of license?

Racket does not dynamically link to Racket libraries when applications
are deployed as compiled executables - as far as I can see, the
standard module system does not link dynamically in the sense required
by the LGPL(*). Therefore, LGPL doesn't allow anyone to distribute his
or her Racket application as compiled executable without making the
source code available on request, too, whenever that source code was
made with an LGPL Racket library. So for users of your library, LGPL
is pretty much equivalent to GPL. They have to provide the source
code, or the program has to load the library with dynamic require at
runtime, if that's possible at all.

(*)=the user must be able to easily update the library that the
executable uses, e.g. by linking to another dynamic library
----- Ursprüngliche Nachricht -----
Von: "Neil Van Dyke" 
An:"Stephen De Gabrielle" , "Racket Users" 
Cc:
Gesendet:Mon, 24 Sep 2018 13:06:15 -0400
Betreff:Re: [racket-users] Licence guidance

 What's seemed to work over many years for my Racket open source
packages 
 (a couple of which are useful things that would be expensive to
rewrite) 
 is LGPL (initially version 2.x, but lately version 3), plus a
statement 
 to contact me about other possible licenses.

 My thinking was, LGPL suggests the idea of sharing in the same
spirit, 
 but has very modest limitations that aren't a barrier to most
commercial 
 use.  At the same time, if someone wanted to make commercial 
 inconsistent with even those modest limitations (e.g., make the
package 
 a closed network service), that was OK, but I'd want some of that
money, 
 in lieu of common benefit warm-fuzzies.

 I don't recall ever being contacted about a different license other
than 
 LGPL.  Some of my Racket packages are used by an important large 
 closed-source production server system, for example, without any 
 different license.  (Though, at one point, someone who wanted to 
 incorporate my CSV library into an open source something initially 
 seemed to be interested in an older version that was LGPLv2 rather
than 
 v3, perhaps for compatibility with their license at the time, but
then 
 they quickly straightened that out somehow.)

 That said, I don't know whether LGPLv3 is the best default license
for 
 third-party Racket packages.  Maybe that should be revisited.

 Today, Racket hasn't yet taken off commercially nearly as much as it 
 might've,[1] and maybe the biggest concern with the licenses of open 
 source Racket packages shared altruistically is that we not 
 inadvertently lock out some positive later effort (because, e.g., we 
 didn't leave a permissive enough license before we went to live
off-grid 
 on a sunny beach with our Racketeering plunder).

 I'm not saying that licenses shouldn't be totally permissive, though,
or 
 we'd just release everything to the public domain. Racket is pretty 
 neat, and, for example, there's still an icky element or two in
industry 
 that have been known to sabotage projects, and licenses can offer
some 
 defense.  I think there's little danger of Racket ever being a
threat or 
 underhanded opportunity to anyone -- but, with all the students
around, 
 we should try to serve example of good open source licensing, in the 
 best spirit of engineering and goodwill.

 [1] It's not too late. :) https://www.neilvandyke.org/racket-money/

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