This page on GNU’s site as part of their published philosophy has been making the rounds today on Twitter encouraging users to avoid licensing their next open source library under the less-restrictive LGPL license, and instead opt for GPL instead.

The main difference between GPL and LGPL is that GPL prohibits the code from being used as part of commercial and/or closed source projects. The article defends this notion by claiming open source software is in direct competition with proprietary software and that the open source community should not let closed source projects benefit from their work.

Why? Because proprietary software developers have money and open source developers do not… wow.

There are several things wrong with this philosophy. Firstly, the implication that open source developers are in some sort of competition with proprietary software developers is short sighted and childish.

Commercial business often supports open source projects via monetary donations, or code. There are also several business models for open source software that rely on commercial services, plug-ins, support, or training to finance further development of the software. What side of this supposed battle do projects like this fall under?

Furthermore the article implies that the only reason someone would even consider releasing under LGPL is to give the developer’s ego a stroke by seeing more people using their library. I don’t know about you, but this sort of condescending attitude isn’t doing much to convince me of the virtues of GPL over LGPL, or gain my support in this supposed “us vs them” software war.

That’s not to say that LGPL is always the answer - different projects will have different goals in mind. However, the hostile attitude presented in this “philosophy” is both unnecessary, and short sighted.

My latest post on the Fenix Solutions blog about Microsoft’s growing support for PHP and several high-profile open source projects.