Re: Lua License

[Carlos A M dos Santos <casantos@...>]

On Thu, 15 Nov 2001, Nick Trout wrote:

> Since the issue of licensing has raised I'd just like to check that
> the Lua license is compatible with the LGPL license.  [...] I get the
> impression that noone knows whether they a really compatible! :-)
---8<---
> However, as long as Lua's license is not breached, broadly speaking:
> you give the authors credit, leave existing copyright and license
> notices, and say if you modified anything, everything is okay. Lua
> license: http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/lua/copyright.html

Lua license is compatible with GPL/LGPL, but not the way round. I other
words, you may take code from Lua and using it in software distributed
under (L)GPL terms. But GNU licenses have a "virotic" bahavior, in a way
that if you use code from a (L)GPL'ed code in your software, it will have
to be distributed under (L)GPL, regardless of how much code *you* wrote.

For practical purposes, Lua's license has the same effects of the new BSD
license, with extra warnings about misrepresenting. It is simple, easy to
understand and non-invasive. On the other hand, GPL/LGPL are confuse, hard
to understand and virotic. I doubt many people that stamp a GPL license in
their code really understand it.

--
Prof. Carlos A. M. dos Santos     http://www.urisan.tche.br/~casantos
    Universidade Regional Integrada do Alto Uruguai e das Missões
Campus de Santo Ângelo, Depto. de Engenharias e Ciência da Computação
Av. Universidade das Missões, 393 - Santo Ângelo, RS - CEP 98.802-470