MPL2 instead of LGPL

[Roman Gilg]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 6:32 PM Christoph Cullmann
<christoph at cullmann.io> wrote:
>
> On 2020-08-17 17:47, Ivan Čukić wrote:
> >> > I've read now multiple times about projects replacing their use of
> >> > LGPLv3 [1] with MPL2 [2]. I would be interested in what people in the
> >> > KDE community think about that.
> >
> > Maybe an alternative to MPL could be these:
> > 1) GPL with runtime exception (if GCC's standard library can use it, I
> > guess
> > we can as well)
> > https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/license.html
> > 2) Boost license as it is also created for a set of template-heavy C++
> > libraries
> >
> >> If one wants to write a modern C++ library that makes heavy use of
> >> templates in the API and which proprietary consumers should be able to
> >> use is this clause alone reason to prefer the MPL2 over the LGPL or is
> >> my concern unfounded?
> >
> > Now, if you don't want to sue anyone, the "10 lines" thing is not a
> > problem.
> > :)
> >
> > You can ask around people that have C++ libraries published under LGPL
> > if they had clients confused about the licensing. There is quote a lot
> > of FUD
> > about (L)GPL often created by companies with dual-licensing models (not
> > gonna
> > mention any names here) so I could see a company being afraid of using
> > an LGPL
> > library. But, on the other hand, if you clearly explain what LGPL means
> > in the
> > context of your library, I'd say LGPL will not be a problem.
> Hi,
>
> for KSyntaxHighlighting we did choose to go with MIT licensing instead
> of LGPLvX.
>
> That allows all kind of integration for proprietary software,
> but will allow people to keep their changes, too,
> which might be not what all people like.

Hi Christoph,

I don't want to go full permissive license. I haven't looked in depth
on the technical, economical and social impact of permissive vs
copyleft licenses but I feel that permissive licenses give too much
away. In this regard for a personal journey and practical take on it
(that at the end becomes suddenly intensely political though) I like
an old blog post of Drew about MIT vs GPL at [1].

But it depends on the project size and what kind of integration is
planned for sure. So I can follow you on why you chose MIT for
KSyntaxHighlighting and I think showing flexibility in licensing
questions is recommendable.

>From the stuff I read it just feels the MPL2 could be a good middle
ground between permissive and copyleft [2]. I'm just wondering why
it's not used more often. That could be just momentum though.

[1] https://drewdevault.com/2019/06/13/My-journey-from-MIT-to-GPL.html
[2] http://veldstra.org/2016/12/09/you-should-choose-mpl2-for-your-opensource-project.html

> Greetings
> Christoph
>
> --
> Ignorance is bliss...
> https://cullmann.io | https://kate-editor.org