*GPL ... approaching 1990s?

[Matej Cepl]

Hi,

I was contemplating to use LGPL for a small project of mine (in the end 
I've decided otherwise for other reasons) but I was again struck by the 
sheer nonsense of attaching 481 lines long COPYING.LGPL to 194 lines 
long script. Would there be anything wrong with replacing the standard 
LGPL copyright blurb with this acknowledging an existence of the Internet?

	This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
	modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
	License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
	version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later
	version.

	This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
	but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
	MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
	GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

	A copy of the full GNU Lesser General Public License is
	available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses\
	/lgpl-2.1.html (or some better URL).

Best,

Matěj

-- 
http://www.ceplovi.cz/matej/, Jabber: mcepl<at>ceplovi.cz
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[Richard Fontana]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 01:10:09AM +0100, Matěj Cepl wrote:
>  Hi,
>  
>  I was contemplating to use LGPL for a small project of mine (in the
>  end I've decided otherwise for other reasons) but I was again struck
>  by the sheer nonsense of attaching 481 lines long COPYING.LGPL to
>  194 lines long script. Would there be anything wrong with replacing
>  the standard LGPL copyright blurb with this acknowledging an
>  existence of the Internet?
>  
>  	This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
>  	modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
>  	License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
>  	version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later
>  	version.
>  
>  	This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
>  	but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
>  	MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
>  	GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
>  
>  	A copy of the full GNU Lesser General Public License is
>  	available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses\
>  	/lgpl-2.1.html (or some better URL). 
Not if you're the original licensor of the work in question.

Otherwise, the orthodox and, it seems, generally accepted
best-practices view is that you actually do have to include a copy of
the license text.

The FSF has even provided a decent policy argument over this: there
are still many people in the world who have no or unreliable net
access, yet such people may receive copies of (L)GPL-licensed software.

Where the orthodox view has absurd results (some uses of the GPL on
JavaScript or fonts come to mind) then I think a different answer may
be reasonable. (See RMS's paper on the "JavaScript Trap" from a few
years ago.) But I wouldn't consider it necessarily absurd to include a
longer license text with a shorter script. It may call into question
the choice of the LGPL to begin with though. (That may not be an
unreasonable guideline: for a new project, never use a license that is
lengthier than the code you would be placing under it.)

Incidentally I believe there is a scholarly article by a UK lawyer (I
believe Neil Brown) that addresses this subject in serious detail,
published, I believe, in a past issue of IFOSSLR, so it should be
readily available. 

- Richard

[Matej Cepl]

On 27.2.2012 01:29, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  It may call into question the choice of the LGPL to begin with
>  though. (That may not be an unreasonable guideline: for a new
>  project, never use a license that is lengthier than the code you
>  would be placing under it.) 
Is this anti-Lesser GPL (pro pure-GPL) rant, or do you mean that authors 
should use for shorter things MIT/BSD/some-other-short-license?

Best,

Matěj

[Richard Fontana]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 07:08:34AM +0100, Matej Cepl wrote:
>  On 27.2.2012 01:29, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  >It may call into question the choice of the LGPL to begin with
>  >though. (That may not be an unreasonable guideline: for a new
>  >project, never use a license that is lengthier than the code you
>  >would be placing under it.)
>  
>  Is this anti-Lesser GPL (pro pure-GPL) rant, or do you mean that
>  authors should use for shorter things
>  MIT/BSD/some-other-short-license? 
It's not specific to LGPL, but more a comment on where relatively
simpler licensing may be more appropriate.

 - RF