Re: [gtk-list] Re: Gtk+ Commercial Applications (Licencing Issues)

[Erik Mouw <J A K Mouw its tudelft nl>]

On Tue, 05 Oct 1999 10:02:42 -0400 (EDT), Havoc Pennington wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Robert Schwebel wrote:
>> Linking against libraries is also possible if they are GPLed (otherwise
>> the whole Linux project wouldn't work with commercial software), so
>> there should be no problem.
> 
> There are no GPL libraries that you need to link against to develop Linux
> software. libc, GTK+, etc. are all LGPL, which allows proprietary software
> to be developed. Please don't spread this misconception.

Besides that, Linus himself indicated (somewhere on l-k, IIRC) that a
program using the Linux kernel is not considered a derived product, so
there is no problem using proprietary software on Linux.

> To the original poster: you need to get a copy of the LGPL, which comes
> with GTK+; read it; if you aren't comfortable that you understand it, _ask
> a lawyer_, the Internet is a very poor place to get legal advice.

Or get information at the FSF (gnu@gnu.org). I recently did that to get
some advice about using the GPL with a bootloader I wrote.


Erik

-- 
J.A.K. (Erik) Mouw, Information and Communication Theory Group, Department
of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems,
Delft University of Technology, PO BOX 5031,  2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-15-2785859  Fax: +31-15-2781843  Email J.A.K.Mouw@its.tudelft.nl
WWW: http://www-ict.its.tudelft.nl/~erik/