[Olsr-dev] olsrd 0.5.5 released !

[Henning Rogge]

> First of all: i did neither notice that the olsr-code is BSD nor that
> linking a GPL-plugin to it would be a licence-issue. I don't have any
> problem with this anyway...
>
> As most of the source is mine i think i'm the one who has to decide
> wether the licence will change or not: (at least the one who may ask
> the others (aquinonyx and sven-ola at all). And as I don't really like
> the idea that my source is used in some commercial-closed-source-
> projects I'd like to make an offer:
>
> We extend the GPL-Licence with the term "This software may be linked
> to any BSD-Licenced code with public available sourcecode".
The problem with this is that I'm not sure a library like this can be
linked with GPL code.
And a commercial company could just create a BSD wrapper (and publish
it's sourcecode) that they put between your code and the close source
code. This way you code only link against BSD code with available
sourcecode, but is still used in a closed-source application. The BSD
wrapper don't need to contain the "can only be linked to code with
source published" part.

> Will this solve our problem or must i definitly switch licence to
> lgpl or bsd?
In my personal oppinion a switch to LGPL3 might be a good option for
you... it doesn't solve the "closed source" aspect, but at least the
company has to publish all modified quagga code and cannot use
software patents or tivolization to prevent  reusing their rewritten
(and published) quagga code.

Henning

-- 
"Wo kämen wir hin, wenn alle sagten, wo kämem wir hin, und niemand
ginge, um einmal zu schauen, wohin man käme, wenn man ginge." (Kurt
Marti)