[fpc-devel] LGPL vs BSD

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

On 8/4/06, Jonas Maebe <jonas.maebe at elis.ugent.be> wrote:
> a modified LGPL license, which says that this is not necessary. The
> modification means that you only have to make available the
> modifications you did to the RTL/LCL source, and not make available
> all object files of your application for relinking.
>
> Of course, if you also statically link against another LGPL'd
> library, this exception is moot.

The BSD license is starting to sound like a much easier license than
the LGPL, as long as you are not interested in changes made to the
library by others.

I guess it is fair if you think of it as follows.  If a company
invests a $1mil per year to improve a library for commercial use
(think along the lines of Qt here), if it was LGPL'ed, they had to
give all that work away which doesn't make financial sense. But if it
was BSD based, they could decide what they wanted to release back to
the community in good faith (think Mac OS X here).

> I'm not sure I understand this. Technically, both are possible in
> principle.

I know both are possible, I just prefer to use it as part of the
executable and not a separate shared library.  Makes for easier
deployment and guarantees the application will run (no matter if I
changed the API for a new version).  Personal preference I guess, but
this is why I wanted to know about the static linking with the
different licenses.

Regards,
  - Graeme -

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