Re: gtkmm capabilities

[Russell Shaw <rjshaw netspace net au>]

Roel Vanhout wrote:
> Russell Shaw 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.
>
>
> In that case, I don't agree with you. There are plenty of people who use 
> licenses that were written after the first version of the GPL (or any 
> other event that you want to use as starting point for FOSS libraries) 
> and who explicitly want to disallow the reverse-engineering of their 
> products.
>
> > > > 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?
>
>
> It could, but the LGPL doesn't. To cite again from section 6 of the LGPL:
>
> "...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."
>
> It is important to note here that 'the work' is the whole application,
> as it is delivered to the customer, eg in the Windows world the .exe 
> file, with the library statically linked in. So to use the LGPL library, 
> you have to license your application so that it allows modification not 
> only of the library but also of the parts of which the source is closed. 
> Again, the LGPL is a bit ambiguous here.

It would seem so, but you could make a licence that restricts reverse
engineering to bug fixing, which is a bit vague.

    *  a) Accompany the work with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code for the 
Library including whatever changes were used in the work (which must be distributed under Sections 1 
and 2 above); and, if the work is an executable linked with the Library, with the complete 
machine-readable "work that uses the Library", as object code and/or source code, so that the user 
can modify the Library and then relink to produce a modified executable containing the modified 
Library. (It is understood that the user who changes the contents of definitions files in the 
Library will not necessarily be able to recompile the application to use the modified definitions.)

It says the closed part can be supplied as an object, and only the library
needs to have source available.

> > > > 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;)
>
>
> You cannot just tack a few words onto a license for a fundamental thing 
> such as this. A license (as well as a contract) has to be written from 
> the ground up with a specific goal in mind, and all parts have to work 
> towards that goal. It is very hard to write a license that will cover 
> all your intended purposes, that cannot just be done by crossing out 
> some sentences here and there and writing in some words.
> Besides, it's not just the cost for the lawyer that writes the license, 
> it's also in the risk that you take by moving into legally undiscovered 
> territory.
>
> cheers,
>
> roel