Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 22:17:24 -0600 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Eivind Eklund <eivind@yes.no> Cc: Nicholas Charles Brawn <ncb05@uow.edu.au>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: LGPL confusion Message-ID: <36105F54.C89F7564@softweyr.com> References: <Pine.SOL.4.02A.9809281050130.20593-100000@banshee.cs.uow.edu.au> <19980928142954.22124@follo.net>
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Eivind Eklund wrote:
>
> On Mon, Sep 28, 1998 at 11:00:58AM +1000, Nicholas Charles Brawn wrote:
> > I was going through the licence file included in the gtk 1.0.6
> > distribution, and discovered that gtk is distributed under the lgpl.
> > >From my limited understanding, with the gpl, you MUST release derivative
> > works with source, though the lgpl has been modified to allow you to
> > release binary only derivative works.
> >
> > Is this the case? Could someone more familiar with the lgpl please
> > clarify it for me.
>
> This is _almost_ the case. You have to release object files for your
> "work that uses the library", and you have to release source code if
> you have a direct derivative work (ie, you do changes to GTK itself).
>
> Shared library technology does probably not release you from the
> requirement to release object files.
If you distribute GTK itself as a shared library, you have no need to
release your own object files, as a user could (theoretically) create
a new shared GTK library, fixing any problems and/or adding functionality
to GTK, and still use it with your program.
OTOH, we wouldn't have this problem if authors of useful libraries like
GTK didn't infest it with any mutation of the GPL. But, since it is
the *GNU* toolkit, it's not surprising, is it? ;^)
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com
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