[computer-go] Collaboration project. Once again

[Jeff Nowakowski]

On Sat, 2006-08-05 at 20:18 -0600, Markus Enzenberger wrote:
> thanks Ron for digging that out. The Go Text Protocol certainly does not 
> qualify for having "intimate semantics of communication". Then there is no 
> problem and I'll leave GoGui's license as it is.

The FSF statement is only *their* interpretation.  As they state in the
FAQ, it is ultimately up to judges to decide.  It is also up to
independent copyright holders to decide whether they think an
application is derivative or not.  So regardless of how the FSF wants to
enforce its copyrights, other authors can choose differently.  Given
this situation, the reluctance of people like Mark and I to use GPL
software is quite reasonable.

I also don't see the logic of FSF's position.  Imagine I wrote some GPL
library routines to play songs in a certain format, and wrapped the
libraries in a command line player.  Now say somebody else comes along
and writes a GUI on top of it, and redistributes the whole bundle under
his own license.

According to the FSF, if the second author interfaces via the command
line, then his license is ok.  If he instead interfaces to the
libraries, it is not.  And yet the end user likely will not be able to
tell the difference between the two approaches!

I agree with Ron that for GoGui an explicit exception is worthwhile,
though personally I see the LGPL license as the cleanest solution.  I'm
not sure what your aversion is to somebody calling your Java code
directly, but of course it is your software, and we're all just
expressing our opinions :)

-Jeff