On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 10:19 PM, David Case <david.case.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017, Hai Nguyen wrote:
>
> > So non-GPL license programs are not allowed to to link to libsander.
>
> Above is not true. The whole point of making libsander LGPL is to allow
> non-GPL programs to link to it. (Certain restrictions apply, but the LGPL
> license is designed to encourage such connections.)
>
Actually Hai's assessment here is accurate. The GPL is the Midas license
-- everything it touches turns to GPL. The problem in this case is that
sander -- and by extension libsander -- is by definition "based on" PBSA.
This is detailed explicitly in the GPL FAQ here:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#MereAggregation.
So the issue here is that by licensing libsander as LGPL, we violate the
terms of PBSA's GPL license. So in this case we have two options:
1. License PBSA as L-GPL
2. License libsander as GPL
Also note that making libsander L-GPL would effectively strip GPL
protections from PBSA -- since all of PBSA's symbols are compiled into
libsander, you could always replace "-lFpbsa" with "-lsander". The GPL
would have no power if it were so easily sidestepped...
There's a reason the corporate world stays as far away from GPL-licensed
libraries as they can for commercial tools (this has been in several of my
recent trainings).
All the best,
Jason
--
Jason M. Swails
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Received on Fri Mar 17 2017 - 20:30:02 PDT
