Re: Licensing agreement (LGPL) question

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Jeff Evarts <jdeassoc@earthlink.net> writes:

> As I understand it, you may use the GTK and GLIB libraries
> to produce a commercial product, and charge for that product,
> provided that you distribute the code for the version of the
> libraries you used to make the product, and that it is not
> required that you make the product's code available to anyone,
> or reassign the copyright to the product's code.
> 
> In essence, you if you use LGPL libraries as libraries, you
> can sell a product that links with the single requirement
> that you distribute the code to the libraries.
> 
> Is this correct?

First, because this has nothing to do with the development
of GTK+, this would be better on gtk-list.

But to answer your question briefly (and roughly, for
exact details see the LGPL. (Hmmm, COPYING.LIB which 
should be in the GTK+ distribution isn't!))

The basic requirement for a program using a library is
that the user be able to modify the library, and then
link the program against the modfiied library. This is
usually satisfied dynamic linking.

If you don't distribute the library in binary form, then
it is generally accepted that you don't need to distribute
the source. (Your users will have received the source
along with the copy of the library they have). If you
do distribute the library in binary form, then you
must distribute the source code or offer to provide
it for no more than the cost of distribution.

But, in no case, are you obligated to provide the source
to your application.
                                        Owen