[sword-devel] Script to find a best fit v11n

[Greg Hellings]

On Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 9:32 AM Arnaud Vié <unas.zole+avie at gmail.com> wrote:

> It might be a silly question, but can't we just consider changing the
> libsword license to something more permissive to allow such use cases,
> without overthinking about GPL compatibility issues ?
>

It could be done, yes. But it is not a change I can make.

It is quite uncommon for open source libraries to use GPL nowadays, as it's
> very restrictive by nature. GPL remains mostly for "complete" applications
> - libraries tend to rather use LGPL, Apache 2.0 or MIT license (depending
> on the level of protection they seek), to favour wide usability.
>

Yes, that has become more common. But part of the reason it has become more
common is to make it easier for commercial inclusion of the more
permissively licensed code. That is, people are intentionally and willingly
giving up the Copyleft protections of GPLv2/3 when they choose it, which is
its own philosophical choice and not one made by Troy.


> It is to be noted that JSword is published under LGPL, which allows other
> apps to use it without constraints as long as it's not being modified.
> It would be enough for the current use case, and it would make sense for
> libsword and jsword to be aligned.
> Personally speaking, I'd favour something more permissive like the Apache
> 2.0 license, which basically allows any usage or modification of any kind,
> but requires people to preserve the initial copyright notice and notify of
> significant changes.
>
> Of course, publishing under a new license can only be done by the current
> rights holder, which according to the libsword LICENSE is the "CrossWire
> Bible Society", as an organisation.
> Does Troy have the full power of decision on the topic ?
> Troy, what do you think of publishing libsword under a more permissive
> license ?
>

The topic has arisen before, and Troy has been resistant to changing the
licensing scheme then. I certainly doubt he would be willing to choose a
non-copyleft license, as those protections are a fundamentally powerful
reason for choosing GPL over the permissive licenses. For my own uses it
would be sufficient if dual-licensing as GPLv2 or GPLv3 were adopted. I
have no need for anything more permissive for this project - indeed v3 is
LESS permissive than v2, and that is the reason for the incompatibility. My
use of Slint for the UI necessitates releasing under v3, which adds
additional protections against hardware locking and patent fishing that v2
does not.

I understand a desire to avoid the blanket "or later" clause, as none of us
can predict what a hypothetical future v3.1 or a v4 of the GPL might
include. But dual licensing would be a big boon to my (very, very specific)
use case!

--Greg


> Regards,
>
> Arnaud
>
>
> Le lun. 30 juin 2025 à 14:43, Matěj Cepl <mcepl at cepl.eu> a écrit :
>
>> On Mon Jun 30, 2025 at 4:55 AM CEST, Aaron Rainbolt wrote:
>> > From what I understand as someone who isn't a lawyer but has done
>> > licensing audits for applications in Ubuntu and Debian, you'll only
>> > run into issues if you publish *built binaries* of your code.
>>
>> That technically may be true, but it is a stupid idea. You don’t
>> do open source software, which nobody can package and distribute.
>>
>> And apparently FSF doesn’t agree with my analysis:
>> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#v2v3Compatibility
>>
>> So, my only advice is to relicense your new program under GPLv2
>> and send FSF to … Apparently, you will be in the distinguished
>> company of Linus Torvalds and many others.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Matěj
>>
>> --
>> http://matej.ceplovi.cz/blog/, @mcepl at en.osm.town
>> GPG Finger: 3C76 A027 CA45 AD70 98B5  BC1D 7920 5802 880B C9D8
>>
>> For those of you who think we are descendents from those cavemen
>> who stood and fought with dinosaurs, you must be nuts, we are
>> descendents from the ones who ran like hell to live.
>>
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