Re: gtkmm capabilities

[Russell Shaw <rjshaw netspace net au>]

Roel Vanhout wrote:
> Russell Shaw wrote:
>
> > Roel Vanhout wrote:
> >
> > > 6. As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or 
> > > link a "work that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a 
> > > work containing portions of the Library, and distribute that work 
> > > under terms of your choice, provided that the terms permit 
> > > modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse 
> > > engineering for debugging such modifications.
> > >
> > > This would be unacceptable for most commercial application that are 
> > > released nowadays.
> >
> > It would only be unacceptable to pre-free-source licences.
>
> Hmm I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'pre-free-source licences'.

Licences that were formulated before anyone had thought about using
open/free source libraries.

> > With a distribution of objects, no reverse engineering is needed,
> > because only the LGPL libraries need to accessible to the user,
> > who can get the source for them anyway.
>
>
> It's irrelevant whether or not it's needed, the LGPL requires it so any 
> programs that use gtkmm (or any other LGPL library for that matter) will 
> have to allow it in their license.

But why can't the licence allow re-engineering of the LGPL objects
and exclude any modification of the closed-source object?

> > If any commercial app is going to be done with LGPL static libs, the
> > licence should be modified for that. There's no law against modifying
> > your licence to allow users to upgrade and relink the LGPL objects.
>
>
> No, of course there is no law against that, and neither should there be. 
> What I'm saying is that you cannot use a standard, tested, commercial 
> license for any product that uses LGPL products, which is not only 
> costly (you'd have to have a lawyer tailor a license to your 
> application) but also a business risk. Costs that will make the 3000$ 
> (which was the original point) pale in comparison.

The cost of drafting a few new words for an existing licence on
a product that is sold by the hundreds or thousands would be pretty
insignificant i think;)