Re: xpdf?

[Stefan Skoglund <stetson ebox tninet se>]

At 00:45 1998-09-10 +0100, Andrew Smith wrote:
>Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis@mindspring.net> writes:
>
>> Wouldn't the GPL licensing of xpdf conflict with the LGPL of GTK?
>
>Only if we wanted to make an xpdf-based widget and put it in the GTK
>distribution (ie we couldn't, as far as I remember).  Otherwise there
>are no problems.  It is perfectly possible to have GPLed GTK widgets;
>GPL code has to stay GPL, though, and cannot be converted to LGPL.
>

Hmm, not really. It is entirely ok to use GPLed code
in something which is LGPL and you can also distribute it but
you can't use libgtk for developing some software without putting
that too under GPL ie every application would have to be GPL.

But the copyright owner of xpdf could very well release some version
under LGPL. Which is very important to understand.
GPL and LGPL is written such that the copyright owner can't
change the distribution terms but he can very well decide
to release something under an more restrictive term and after that
stop doing work on the GPL version. He/She can't of course
use improvements done by other people on the GPLed version.

Which is probably the major point with GPL and LGPL.

The BSD licence is written such that it is possible to import BSD
licensed sw in commercial sw (for ex SunOS) without having
to disclose your own sw.