Symfony's views on the GPL

[Sam Liddicott]

On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 2:40 PM, Nicolas JEAN <jean at fsfeurope.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm looking into Symfony right now, and this stopped my reading:
> "
> 8. License
> Licenses are important simply because they can have a significant impact on
> your applications. For example, an application developed using a
> GPL-licensed framework will necessarily be subject to GPL. On the other
> hand, this is not the case for an MIT-licensed framework.
> "
>     http://symfony.com/ten-criteria
>
> This seems untrue for several reasons, at best not worded very carefully.

The careful wording is probably too complicated to the statements intended use/

> As I understand it, for example, using a GPL framework probably does not
> make your project "necessarily subject to" the GPL. Anyone more on this?
> Isn't that exactly what the GPL linking exception is for?

This case would be of a of an application developed using a
GPL-licensed framework with a GPL linking-exception, which is not the
scenario described.

Of course the license also covers distribution of works, not development.

> What do you people of the Free Software think? :)

I can imagine that any such exception for an application framework
would have to be negotiated individually for each application project
to have the exception. If it were a general exception it would be
equivalent to a MIT license :-)

if your application is also GPL (and there are good reasons for making
it GPL) then it would not be a problem.

MIT license addresses convenience more than liberty. Liberty must be
carefully preserved.

Sam