Re: [fluid-dev] Another application using FluidSynth announced

[Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas]

On Monday 12 September 2011, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 11:38:46PM +0200, Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas wrote:
> > Likewise, for me it is not only important the letter of the LGPL license, 
but 
> > the ethical principles inspiring the libre software movement. For 
instance, 
> > the principle of no discrimination that is not part of the LGPL, but is 
> > included in the Open Source Definition, the Debian Social Contract ("No 
> > Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor") and the free software 
definition: 
> > "freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)".
> > 
> > Forbidding FluidSynth in the App Store means to deny all the iPxxx users 
even 
> > the knowledge that this project exists, not to mention the right to use 
the 
> > program. In the long run, this means more harm than good for us.
> 
> I observe merely that this is precisely the argument used by the BSD
> people to justify the position that the GPL is wrong and should not be
> used, and only the BSD licenses are really free.
> 
> (That is, the GPL's restrictions on distribution are a de facto
> restriction on use. In Debian this is occasionally referred to as the
> "restricting the field of endeavour of writing proprietary software
> that contains GPLed components" argument, which is not accepted as a
> legitimate interpretation of that clause)

It would be more fair if you avoided to delete freedoms 1 and 2 in your 
quotation. Please avoid manipulating my words.

A BSD license is not equivalent to a liberal interpretation of the LGPL, that 
is: allowing the distribution of FluidSynth and derived works by any channel, 
including the App Store, with the conditions (required by the LGPL, not by the  
BSD license) that 1) when the source code is modified, it must be available 
and 2) the FluidSynth library can be updated, modified, recompiled and used to 
rebuild the executable. 

You clearly don't have the right to do anything you want with FluidSynth, but 
you avoid a discriminatory ban for a whole community, which is not the spirit 
of free software either. On the contrary: that is against freedom 0.

About freedom 2, as David said, for me it is enough if somebody who received 
the program through the App Store is able to modify FluidSynth, rebuild the 
program, and distribute the derived works on Cydia.

Regards,
Pedro