rms@AI.MIT.EDU (Richard Stallman) (01/17/91)
If you have suggestions for changing the library GPL, please send them to me (rms@ai.mit.edu), not help-g++ (gnu.g++.help). If you report a problem with the way the LGPL accomplishes its aims, or a possibly unintended side effect, I'll probably do something about it. The substantial change between the first published draft and the second is due to criticisms of this sort. If you ask for a fundamental change in the aims of the LGPL, then we are unlikely to oblige. In particular, we are not considering dropping the requirement that end users have the ability and the freedom to modify the library and relink the application. True, the LGPL is a concession we are making to get more software developers to use the GNU libraries. We reluctantly decided to drop the requirement for the application code to be free, because that issue doesn't seem so close to home, and that's why we are making an LGPL in the first place. But letting a developer take away the end users' freedom to change *the GNU code* is another matter. Developers are not entitled to strip off the freedom when passing the library along. Not even when they stick it inside something else. Dropping this requirement would get some additional users for our software, but would promote freedom less. When the users saw application programs that used our library, the message they would get is that we had sold them out. The purpose of the GNU project is not maximizing the use of GNU software. It is promoting the freedom to share and change software as much as we can. Having more users is better, all else being equal, but not at the cost of forgetting what we are about. It seems that the GNU libraries will have enough use under the terms now proposed to make them thrive. Even if that's only 25% as much as they would otherwise be used, that is not a serious problem for the GNU project. Pacifism is not part of the GNU philosophy, and software hoarding is not a victimless crime. Being a wimp is not my idea of "high mindedness". 'nuff said. If people want to discuss whether they agree with the aims of the FSF, please use the newsgroup gnu.misc.discuss. It was made for that purpose.