Re: LGPL code using GPL code

[Jindrich Novy <jnovy redhat com>]

Hi,

On Tue, 2004-10-19 at 18:58, Leonard den Ottolander wrote: 
> Although we haven't had an answer on Andrew Samoilov's request to
> Jindrich Novy from Red Hat for legal advise on whether LGPL code can use
> GPL functions legally

well, I delayed a bit with the answer because I have discussed this
issue on our os-development mailing list and was gathering information.

my question was:
> In mc we have VFS code that is licensed under LGPL. This code is using
> code from another directory where it is licensed under GPL. Isn't it a
> legal problem? Is it ok?

and some of replies I had:

Arjan van de Ven:
it's explicitly allowed, but it means the LGPL code is used as GPL code
at that point, eg basically the "L" goes away... ;)

Roland McGrath:
There is no problem unless you are producing a library containing some
GPL source code and then distributing a library binary and claiming that
it is under the LGPL.

So in my opinion there's not a big problem in this since we are not
distributing any mc library claiming it is LGPL. For the license
conversion to GPL please note, that you need all the authors of mc to
agree with it.

I hope it helped a bit, but note I'm a programmer, not a lawyer ;-)

cheers,
Jindrich

-- 
Jindrich Novy <jnovy redhat com>, http://people.redhat.com/jnovy/