[Mono-list] License Addendum

[Sujal Shah]

"Jay Freeman (saurik)" wrote:
> 
> OUCH, I never noticed how that clause forced applications linked with LGPL
> binaries to still be freely redistributable (and in modified form to boot).
> I totally agree that there are some issues that need to be dealt with here.
> 

It doesn't.  IANAL, and this isn't necessarily the appropriate forum,
but all it says is that you can't restrict "modification of the work for
the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such
modifications."  Says nothing of redistributing the source at all.  It
says nothing about redistribution ("for the customer's own use").

I also believe section 6 talks about statically linking the library into
the non-LGPLd work ("combine or link ... to produce a work containing
portions").  If you use dynamic linking, the work that you distribute
(the executable sans library code) should be ok.  

The second clause seems more problematic, but I seem to remember that is
talking about an executable covered by the LGPL.  need to go get
context, though, and I can't do that right now.

I haven't read the whole license in a while, so I may be mistaken (part
of this, of course, hinges on the definition of "a work that uses the
Library" which conspicuously appears in quotes all over the place.  As I
said, IANAL. :-)  

This has been covered in other venues (i.e. KDE and GNOME), and you can
easily just email the FSF and get their opinion and intent.

Sujal

> Sincerely,
> Jay Freeman (saurik)
> saurik@saurik.com
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sebastien Lambla" <sebastien.lambla@6sens.com>
> To: <mono-list@ximian.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 4:11 AM
> Subject: [Mono-list] License Addendum
> 
> > here are my worries about the LGPL license. If anyone can show me there's
> no
> > problems, I'll be very happy to use the LGPL license for mono:
> >
> > ------
> > 6. As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a
> > "work that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing
> > portions of the Library, and distribute that work under terms of your
> > choice, provided that the terms permit modification of the work for the
> > customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such
> modifications.
> > ------
> >
> > That means that a software running on top of mono should include in it's
> > license a grant for the users of the application to be able to modify the
> > application, reverse engineering it. That  means that most closed-source
> > programs which will run on top of the .net framework could "technically"
> run
> > on top of mono, but won't "legally" ?
> >
> > ------
> > For an executable, the required form of the "work that uses the Library"
> > must include any data and utility programs needed for reproducing the
> > executable from it.
> > ------
> >
> > That means publishing the source code of the application and the
> compilers,
> > right?
> >
> >
> > My main problem with the LGPL license is that it only allow the
> application
> > ran on top of mono not to be modified for distribution, but it seems to me
> > it still requires to publish source code and such? Which will be a
> conflict
> > for applications which weren't linked "specifically" to the mono library,
> > but just built on top of the framework.
> >
> > Sebastien Lambla
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Mono-list maillist  -  Mono-list@ximian.com
> http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list

-- 
------ Sujal Shah ---- sujal@sujal.net

	   http://www.sujal.net/