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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-GB link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>John,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>As far as I know it is the libraries that interface to O/S libraries that have most value in the platform and, AFAIK, many HP libraries link to O/S libraries (e.g., GLUT).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I had expected that at least the principle HDBC drivers would have to go into the Haskell Platform with HDBC.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>> And that is a useful point as well. If there is a big package that<br>> people can use and understand once, without having to analyze licenses<br>> for dozens of component packages, there's value in that for sure.<br><br></span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>> What I'm hoping the commercial people on this list could do (besides me,<br>> that is) is say something like "LGPL won't work for us because clause<br>> xxx requires us to do yyy."<br><br></span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I am such a commercial developer as well as soon (I hope) a Haskell Platform maintainer. I am trying to explain my concerns. There are problematic clauses in the LGPL (<i>any</i> clauses that set out conditions for making the using system a derived work of the LGPL-licensed library) but the key point is having, as far as possible, a single permissive license (like the BSD license) for all of the libraries.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>For mission-critical components all of the legal due diligence and necessary educating of parties gets done. But it is not practical to do this for non-essential libraries, so anything that isn’t covered by a BSD or similar license needs to be replaced for the production release.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>> At the same time, if one of the HP maintainers says, "We want HDBC in<br>> the HP and all that's holding us back is the license" I think that would<br>> be compelling enough for me to switch it immediately.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>It would be interesting to hear from the HP maintainers. I would expect them to have a good handle on these issues.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Chris<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> John Goerzen [mailto:jgoerzen@complete.org] <br><b>Sent:</b> 23 February 2011 19:34<br><b>To:</b> Chris Dornan<br><b>Cc:</b> 'Haskell Cafe'; 'Gershom Bazerman'<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Haskell-cafe] HDBC's future and request for help<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>On 02/23/2011 11:57 AM, Chris Dornan wrote:<br>> Thanks John,<br>><br>> I think this is a valuable discussion.<br>><br>> The compromise you propose wouldn’t address the main point – the fear<br>> and aversion of using (L)GPL IP in proprietary IP.<br><br>Is that fear well-grounded or not? If not, then people should be<br>educated. If so, then let's see what we can do about it -- either add<br>exceptions or relicense. I don't really think that this community<br>should choose licenses based upon whether or not third parties hold an<br>irrational fear of them.<br><br>> For me the key phrase in your email was the final one – ‘if my reading<br>> is correct’. Everywhere I would take advantage of this modified license<br>> I will need to get the lawyers of the people owning the host IP to agree<br>> to this interpretation.<br><br>This is no different than with any other license, but could even be made<br>more explicit. In the end, we are (mostly) a community of non-lawyers<br>here so such disclaimers<br><br>I also don't think that we ought to cater to people who are afraid to<br>read licenses. Those are the people that tend to do things like pirate<br>busybox and the Linux kernel for proprietary purposes.<br><br>> I have checked all of the packages in the Haskell Platform and they are<br>> all BSD3. If it had been otherwise it would have destroyed a significant<br>> part of the value of the HP – clear and straightforward licensing<br>> implications for using it.<br><br>And that is a useful point as well. If there is a big package that<br>people can use and understand once, without having to analyze licenses<br>for dozens of component packages, there's value in that for sure.<br><br>There are two ways to accomplish that. One is to insist that everything<br>use the same license. The other is to establish standards for what kind<br>of licensing terms are acceptable. An example of the latter is the<br>Debian Free Software Guidelines,<br><a href="http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines">http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines</a><br><br>We could propose a guideline for things that go in the Haskell Platform,<br>and it could be such as this:<br><br>* All licenses must meet the terms of the Debian Free Software<br>Guidelines (DFSG), and must also meet the following terms:<br><br>* Proprietary applications may use and link with unmodified versions of<br>libraries without forcing the rest of the application to use a specific<br>license<br><br>* Licenses may require proprietary applications that use and link with<br>modified versions of libraries to make source code to the modifications<br>available to the community under the original library's license, but may<br>not require applications to do so for other code linked to the application<br><br>* Licenses may require copyright and/or warranty disclaimers to be<br>carried with applications that use the code.<br><br>Perhaps we could also list example copyright/license statements that<br>meet the requirements.<br><br>> I really don’t want to plough work into a package that can’t be bundled<br>> with the HP, the natural home for strategically-important high-quality<br>> libraries.<br><br>I'm not certain the HP is a good home for HDBC. One could put HDBC<br>itself in there, but it's useless without a database backend. All of<br>those, do date, require a C binding which probably makes them poor<br>candidates for the HP. If the thing in the platform is useless without<br>the backend driver, is it sensible to put it in the HP?<br><br>At the same time, if one of the HP maintainers says, "We want HDBC in<br>the HP and all that's holding us back is the license" I think that would<br>be compelling enough for me to switch it immediately.<br><br>> Turning this around, it is going to be much easier to get people who are<br>> using Haskell in commercial contexts to contribute to HDBC if it has a<br>> license that meets their requirements.<br><br>Quite so. I want to make sure we do that. That's one reason I have<br>kept the door to the BSD license open. As I've said, I've relicensed<br>other code under BSD in the past and may be convinced to do it again.<br>What I'm hoping the commercial people on this list could do (besides me,<br>that is) is say something like "LGPL won't work for us because clause<br>xxx requires us to do yyy."<br><br>Then we can have a good discussion here, revolving around:<br><br> * Is the community/author prepared to say that we want to let people<br>do yyy with our software?<br> * And if so, what is the best response? Can we make small exceptions<br>to the LGPL to satisfy it, or do we have to go to the BSD or some other<br>such license?<br><br>> I do appreciate your concerns – I have regularly contributed code to the<br>> community and want to continue doing so – but I think there is little<br>> real prospect of HDBC being attacked by a proprietary derivative. I<br>> don’t doubt there will be some free-loading, but this might be the<br>> inevitable price of attracting more investment.<br><br>That's an interesting point. There is, of course, free-loading even<br>with GPL'd software. The promise there is, though, that people get<br>their rights preserved regardless of who gives them the software. I<br>like that, and think that in the long term it produces the greatest net<br>gain in software quality and freedom. Yet I realize that it can cause<br>some people without that mindset to reject it, which is why I see the<br>LGPL, perhaps with the additional exception I've outlined, a good balance.<br><br>-- John</span> <o:p></o:p></p><div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><hr size=1 width="100%" noshade style='color:#A0A0A0' align=center></div><p class=avgcert>No virus found in this message.<br>Checked by AVG - <a href="http://www.avg.com">www.avg.com</a><br>Version: 10.0.1204 / Virus Database: 1435/3463 - Release Date: 02/23/11<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>