Re:GPL vs BSD, a matter of sustainability
by mkup on Friday February 08, 2013 @07:46AM
(#5187552)
Author of this article is missing LGPL entirely. LGPL allows anyone to ensure that all changes to his code are published freely, but also allows packaging with commercial closed-source code into single downloadable file (unlike GPL).
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That's not entirely true. The LGPL requires that the end user be able to re-link the product with an API-compatible version of the LGPL-licensed library.
On platforms that support dynamic linking this is easy to allow - just package the LGPLed library as a dynamic library the user can easily replace. On platforms that don't (e.g. iOS) it's harder, and I believe it's still 'gray' what's required in practise - or even if the requirement is possible to satisfy. Some will say if you supply object files so that the end user can relink, that's fine.
Re:GPL vs BSD, a matter of sustainability
by IWentToTheWoods on Friday February 08, 2013 @12:34PM
(#5189005)
>Some will say if you supply object files so that the end user can relink, that's fine.
It's not "some will say"; supplying object files for your code and source for the LGPL library is specifically listed as an option in the LGPL itself.
yes - but that option is followed with "...so that the user can modify the Library and then relink to produce a modified executable containing the modified Library."
[LGPL 2.1, section 6a]
Can an iOS user do that? I would not like to depend on saying "Yes" to a court.