At this point it looks like the only reasonable option is to (begrudgingly) move to "GPLv2 or above" but there is another option that I haven't seen come up in discussion yet, and that is releasing SAGE under an amended GPLv2 that explicitly allows linking against LGPLv3+ libraries (or some other compatibility clause). This would free us from being at the mercy of whatever the FSF decides is a good idea 10 years from now, or even what they decided this last year.
In doing this, however, we would loose what to me is the biggest advantage of the GPL over all the other copyleft Open Source licenses out there, namely that one merely has to say "this code is GPL" and everyone has an idea (of varying accuracy) what you're talking about. Also, it would only cover LGPL code, not anything GPL. I am not convinced that this is the best idea, I just wanted to throw it out there. - Robert On Sep 23, 2007, at 11:34 AM, William Stein wrote: > > On 9/23/07, Mike Hansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> It seems odd that closed source software could use GMP under the >> LGPLv3, but that a GPLv2 project could not. How tightly >> integrated is >> the GMP stuff? Aren't we pretty much just using it as a library? > > We are just using it as a library. The problem isn't LGPLv3, > but GPLv2 itself! But please see > http://gplv3.fsf.org/dd3-faq > where it is made crystal clear that in fact a GPLv2 project can't > even use an LGPLv3 library in library-only mode. > > There is a discussion here: > http://lwn.net/Articles/241065/ > > In short, Magma and Maple can use GMP under LGPLv3, but > Sage can't, because Sage is GPLv2, and the GPLv2 specifically > disallows linking against libraries that are more restrictive > (except things like the C library). > > -- William > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
