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Re: [pygame] Licensing



James & Pete,

Thanks for following my licensing question.

In response to James' comment, I spent a couple of hours reviewing the LGPL and GPL.

My current publicly available project, pyBCD (http://www.pygame.org/project/793/?release_id=1374), is a sandbox for getting familiar with python and working out techniques that will go into two bigger projects. At least one of those to will be commercial.

I put pyBCD under GPL V3 just to have a license with it.

Now I'm thinking it's a decent idea. I agree with fair use and open source. If someone wants to modify it and distribute their own version, provided they follow the terms of the GPL, that's ok.

Or do I think that because pyBCD is a nifty, intellectual curiosity, not intended for profit, and my commercial projects are in late alpha stage?

According to the GNU site, LGPL is best when you need to develop a following for your project (pygame, gcc, etc.) and GPL when you already have code superior to closed source.

As a binary clock connoisseur, I would say, yes, I have written the Mother of all BCD Clocks (I'm charitably leaving the larger "binary clocks" category open.) :)

The GNU distinction seems like a distinction without a difference. Where is the "gotcha" in GPL? Is it in packaging a distribution?

Is the "gotcha" against me or someone trying to distribute?