Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >   Their response said: "I understand from your description that you are a
> > proprietary software developer. If I am wrong in this understanding, please
> > correct me. [...] We offer our services by paid consultation to non-free
> > software developers."

> I can sympathize. If you're going to get paid for using what they gave for 
> free, then you can afford to pay them to find out what they mean.

  Most LGPL libraries out there are not owned by the FSF. It's not like it's
*their* loss.

  (Besides, the whole point of the LGPL license is for the libraries to be
usable in proprietary software. They explicitly state it as such.)

> > and refer to your legal counsel."

> Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't say that in the first place, free or not. 
> Otherwise, they have lawyers working for you for free.

  It's not like I asked for legally binding consultation per se. I just
wanted some clarifications.

> >   Of course they are entitled to this. It still somehow feels wrong.

> Maybe you live in a country where people don't get in trouble for giving 
> free legal advice. :-)

  But they should know their *own* license. Or is it so that they cannot
formulate official opinions on their own license without asking their
lawyers first?

> > Craft a somewhat ambiguous software usage license on the basis of
> > freedom, and then outright refuse to clarify it without monetary
> > compensation, and seemingly only because the person who asked the
> > question happens to be a non-free software developer.

> Seems fair. you're asking them to work for you for free, so you can safely 
> use their freely-offered software, to make money that you won't give any of 
> to them. :-)

  If they don't want to get "abused" like that, then why did they create
the LGPL license in the first place?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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