Re: why LGPL 2.0?

[Douglas Ian Linder <linderdi cs curtin edu au>]

Oh, a couple of other points which you might find interesting:

- It's fully possible to write an application that dynamically loads
  LGPL libraries (or GPL libraries even), which is not linked to them,
  and thus is not a derivative work.

  As long as no one ever uses your program, it's fine. If someone does
  though, the program becomes a derivative when it loads the library,
  and unless the program is in conformance with the license, is thus
  in license violation.

  What does that mean? Simple; your program cannot run with the library
  loaded (by license)... which makes the whole exercise pointless.

- The best way to use both LGPL and GPL component in a commercial 
  environment is to actually write multiple applications and use 
  IPC to communicate between them.

  For example, consider company X who has a power rendering suite, and
  is considering using GTK to do a front-end. Company X has absolutely
  no intention of allowing users to reverse engineer their software.

  The best way to go would be to write a back-end which is GTK free
  which does the processing and have a small light weight front end 
  using the GTK (and freetype say) library(s). 

  This product can then be sold to other people which the front-end
  attached. Even if the front end is GPL, and people can freely distribute
  it, the core application remains proprietary, and the commercial
  interests of X are protected.

In general there are lots of high quality products out there under both
LGPL and GPL. However, the licenses -are- ambiguous at times and can be
"subject to interpretation". In all seriousness, if you want to use them,
avoid the whole set of complexities and only license sections of your
program that you do not consider to be of significance to the company 
under either GPL or LGPL.

IPC is one of the better ways to go... although I have heard rumours
that the free software foundation is planning on updating the licenses
at some point in the future to cover the topic of free (but subscription
based) software. I consider that to be a remote possibility, but one
worth considering. Remember, any future LGPL or GPL license is equally
applicable to the current one on an application.

ciao,
Doug.