Email conversation
| From | Louis-Pierre Charbonneau |
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| To | Me |
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| Subject | Using perfect popup in an open source project |
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| Date | 5 March 2009 04:08 |
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Mark,
I'm working on a project over at [URL]. It's licensed under LGPL.
Your perfect popup script is solving my popup size problem. Can I bundle it
with my project?
(Your license terms say I have to contact you to get permission in this
case.)
Thank you,
LP
| From | Me |
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| To | Louis-Pierre Charbonneau |
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| Subject | Re: Using perfect popup in an open source project |
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| Date | 7 March 2009 13:11 |
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Louis-Pierre,
> It's licensed under LGPL.
>
> Your perfect popup script is solving my popup size problem. Can I bundle it with my project?
Your chosen license prevents you from bundling almost anything that is
not licensed with its own license terms. My scripts are not available
under LGPL, so your own license prevents you from using them.
LGPL permits non-LGPL software to link to it and distribute the result,
but does not allow LGPL software to link non-LGPL software into it, and
distribute that while still keeping the independent license. The
resulting software would be LGPL, and per the LGPL license must be
re-distributable as GPL. GPL is by design a viral license, incompatible
with virtually all other licenses.
Although it would be possible for you to provide your software without
my code, and simply provide instructions to your users on how to
download my script from my site, and link it into your project (this
kind of linking is permitted by LGPL), neither you nor they would then
be allowed to distribute the result.
You are better off using a proper permissive license (a truly free
license) like the BSD license, which allows you to use custom licensed
software within your own distribution, subject to the terms of that
custom license, as long as it is made clear that the custom licensed
code still retains its own license. If you choose to change to a truly
free license instead of the highly restrictive GPL license family, let
me know, and we can discuss further terms.
Mark 'Tarquin' Wilton-Jones - author of http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/
| From | Louis-Pierre Charbonneau |
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| To | Me |
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| Subject | Re: Using perfect popup in an open source project |
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| Date | 8 March 2009 03:10 |
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Thank you for taking the time to answer me.
It seems strange to me that you suggest that I should release under 'a truly
free license' like BSD while your code is not in the 'truly free license'
world either.
[Ed. I am not restricted by my own choice of license, and can use whatever
suits my needs, and is appropriate for my intentions. A truly free license
would do the same for the case mentioned in this thread, and in fact, so
would a custom license. The GPL-type license, however, does not.]
At any rate, your code works very well but I won't use it.
Again thank you for taking the time to answer.
LP