A few comments

[Eion Robb]

> I agree.  In fact, I do not always agree with the GPL, or the
> restrictions it levies.  However, Pidgin was written under the GPL, by
> authors who believed that the GPL was the Right License for it, and I
> believe that, as a current Pidgin supporter, to circumvent that or to
> assist others in circumventing it is wrong.
> I certainly believe that, all other things being equal, Free software
> is better than non-Free software, and that the GPL is grand stab at
> Getting it Right.
Perhaps libpurple needs a different license?  One that reflects the ideals  
of the Pidgin developers more?  Or an extension on the GPL to say, "no  
other software/program/library/toolkit that communicates with libpurple  
either directly or indirectly through OS calls, for the purpose of the  
shared use of its functions and data structures, may do so without being  
'Free'" with some meaning of 'Free' to be compatible with non-GPL licences  
that are still in the 'spirit' of Pidgin devels?  If the 'spirit' of the  
GPL can currently be violated (in a GPL legal way) by making calls through  
another library, then lets make the licence clear and stop this  
happening.  It's your code and you shouldn't have to sit back and watch as  
it's used in ways you don't want it to be legally possibly to be used.


To make things more interesting, Skype has just announced they are  
partnering with MySpace to put Skype in MySpaceIM (or is it the other way  
around).  
http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2007/10/skype_and_myspace_team_up.html
It's just speculation at this stage, but it should either open up the  
Skype protocol a bit more, or lock down the MySpaceIM protocol hard.