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Re: LGPL vs. BSD



Am 29.04.2008 um 02:29 schrieb Ernesto Bascon:
If I want to write some NetBSD specific code [userland, but tied to
your OS], do you HEAVILY suggest me to provide it under the 4 clause
BSD license?

That's hard to tell without the details on your software.

I am starting to write a "virtual environment" on top of NetBSD. In
the far away future,
it will be a desktop environment running as a process; so, you can have several different instances of the "virtual environment" running in the same box.

Anyway, to improve performance and to have access to physical
resources, I will need to
talk with the OS directly, I thought doing that through LKMs [though I
did not work with that at all].

If it's based on NetBSD, I'd recommend the BSD license simply following the fact that NetBSD is (mostly) under that license. Mixing licences just asks for trouble, IMHO.


FWIW, NetBSD will move away from 4 clauses soonish, towards 2-3 clauses (I
forgot the details). Maybe hat helps a bit.

The central question if GPL code is "acceptable" is how critical your code will be for the average user, and what will break if it can't be shipped. E.g. on embedded devices, no C compiler is acceptable. Other thincs like the kernel can't be left out, and as such there's a "no GPL in the kernel"
rule in NetBSD.

So, would be a NetBSD acceptable approach writing all the userland in
the LGPL and
my LKMs in the BSD-license?

Acceptable for what purpose?
If this is to be intended for inclusion into NetBSD's source tree,
I'd go for nothing but the BSD license. Why do you want to use the LGPL at all? IF this goes into something else, maybe consider dual- licensing.


 - Hubert



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