[ODE] Expieranced ODE User

[Anselm Hook]

I can already see that debating this here isn't going to go far without
some kind of action!  I looked at the LGPL just now and there certainly
seems to be some ambiguity, such as clause 5 about what constitutes a
derivative work or not.  Honestly I think the LGPL is a pernicious license
and complex enough that it would scare investors - it certainly scares me.

May I suggest that the best action to do is ask Russ to liberalize the
license more for you (even if you are confident that you have no liability
under the LGPL).  Your investors (who may not be schooled in the LGPL)
would appreciate the clarity anyway.  Basically I just don't see any
resolution here at a discussion level without consulting Russ.

-a

On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Francis Irving wrote:

> On Fri, 07 Jun 2002 09:20:28 -0400, "Martin C. Martin"
> <martin@metahuman.org> wrote:
>
> >You realize ODE is distributed under the LGPL right?  And that means you
> >need to provide the source to the lib, and a way for anyone who hacks it
> >to link their changes into the game?  So people will be able to reduce
> >gravity, change friction, or even completely replace the physics engine
> >if they want?  If so, that'll be a lot of fun.  :)
> >
> >Does the company providing the funding know that?  Does the deal you're
> >about to sign allow that?
>
> In practice it isn't a problem.  If they link ODE into a separate
> "ode.dll", and provide their source code changes somewhere, then
> that's fine.  Publishers, and most customers, won't even know or
> understand this subtle distinction, and their contracts almost
> certainly won't mention it.
>
> It's really no different from dynamically linking to DirectX, or even
> user32.dll.  As professional programmers, we set the agenda as to what
> level of open source code reuse is acceptable in a commercial
> application (before the whole thing is effectively open source).
> There's no need to fear that power.
>
> Francis
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