[Greasemonkey] GPL compatibility

[Robert G. Werner]

Terry Lurie wrote:
> As an occasional interloper on these lists, and zero contributor of
> copyrighted code, I don't have much sway.
> 
> But I do have an opinion, and will keep it brief.
> 
> A lot of commercial companies will not touch GPL software. Commercial
> companies are not all blood sucking. Having commercial companies
> express interest is often a good thing for the overall project.
> 
> My case in point is ogre3d -- www.ogre3d.org . It only started being
> widely used after it switched from the GPL to LGPL.
> 
> My rather insignificant vote would be LGPL, where any modifications to
> GreaseMonkey would have to be contributed back, but commercial people
> could still do their thing with sensitive data.
> 
> Examples where commercial/private interests may want to extend GM are
> say operators that have proprietary codecs which they would love to
> open as free-as-in-beer. GPL restricts this.
> 
> A good argument could be made that such people should write a custom
> XPI and call that instead, but hey. Who knows where GM could go?
> 
> LGPL stops business getting the jitters.
[snip]
That doesn't seem to be the case in recent years.  IBM being just one 
famous example of companies contributing to and supporting GPL 
licensed projects.  Sure there's room for Companies to comercialize 
their mods to free software,  but if that isn't something the 
developer community of a project wants to see happen,  I don't think 
they will prevent someone who understands Open Source from participating.

-- 
In Reach Technology:    http://www.inreachtech.net/

Robert G. Werner
robert at inreachtech.net

Tel: 559.304.5122

Say what you mean, simply and directly.
             - The Elements of Programming Style (Kernighan & Plaugher)