On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 4:38 PM, David Robillard <d(a)drobilla.net> wrote:
It never hurts to ask ;)
Yes I suppose your right. I'll note though, that I'd concider myself
hesitant to request an author of GPL software to re-license as LGPL. Its
basically asking "mind if *I* earn money from *your* work?", and that's not
something that I'd like to promote.
On the other hand, a LGPL library that would allow easy usage of threads,
ringbuffers, etc would definatly benefit the project I'm doing.
Somewhere on the GNU site I read a pretty good paragraph on "choosing the
right license", and basically it comes down to this:
if there's a commercial version of library X available, and an LGPL
alternative of X appears, it will promote the use of open libraries, and
hopefully the use of the library will improve it.
If an GPL version appears, it will be used in open-source software, but
most likely never be used in commercial / closed software solutions, and
hence its "publicity" and user-base will be smaller...
(Overcame my dose of laziness:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html)
End of the day, I think respect for the authors work is the most important
thing, and I'd personally be slightly agitated if somebody emailed "Hey can
I take your efforts and make money without promising anything back?" as it
would imply that they don't want to respect the license that I'd chosen for
the efforts I'd done.
Rant over I think :) -Harry