On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, Christian Robottom Reis wrote:

> Yes, and of course RMS will say that you're being naive, but I understand
> you know fully well the consequence of not using the GPL.

I do.

I work most of my working hours in closed-source projects. I'd like to be
able to use curl/libcurl in my everyday work if I find a place where it would
improve the things I produce. Thus, I need a license that allows closed-
source incorporation.

> > Perhaps the license is too liberal for the people contributing with code,
> > resulting in less contributors and thus a poorer product.
>
> This is the only risk I see in it. If contributors are ok with it, then go
> ahead.

Well, the question is out there. I don't want to force my own opinions on
every part of this project, I want to at least feel I have a majority or a
bunch of people behind me. Or else, I'll have to reconsider.

Since before I know I have a few people that supports me, that don't care
that much about the details as long as curl remains free and open.

> I don't like the X11 license myself, and I hated X11 vendor's proprietary
> efforts, so I'd vote for the LGPL myself if any change must be brought
> about.

I appriciate you saying so. All voices count.

> I'm not sure I agree on the GPL-hijacking of the LGPLed sources - this is
> the same sort of risk as a code fork, and I think people tend to respect
> the copyright holder on license matters. So even though it _could_ be
> done, I don't think it would.

You're right, it's a very small risk. That isn't my single objection against
LGPL, even if it is my main one.

No matter what license I'll go with together with the MPL, I will most likely
use a policy where I won't apply changes to the main sources unless the
submittor agrees to both licenses.

> There's another thing to take into account: the GPL `community'

Yep. That scares me a little.

> which means GPL authors and users tend to stick together and reuse lots
> of code, which doesn't extend to software with other licenses. Being
> GPLed (or LGPLed to an extent) puts you in the same boat as most free
> software developers, which is good.

Well, being "GPL compatible" will at least make curl capable of being
compared and taken into consideration. A GPL project could even borrow code
from a X11-licensed project, as long as the copyright headers etc are left,
so there's not much of a difference in the eyes of the GPL world.

> See Mozilla being dual-licensed this last month?

Of course. I've been watching that with greatest interest. I see a lot of
projects going GPL or dual-GPL the last couple of months. I find it
interesting.

-- 
  Daniel Stenberg -- curl project maintainer -- http://curl.haxx.se/