[fpc-pascal] TDBF licensing

[Jonas Maebe]

Adriaan van Os wrote on Wed, 01 Jul 2015:

> Jonas Maebe wrote:
>> There is no reason why you would ever have to release your own source
>> code, except if you would start mixing your own source code into the
>> TDBF units or so.
>
> Wikipedia  
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License>  
> writes
>
> 	Essentially, if it is a "work that uses the library", then it must  
> be possible for the software to be linked with a newer version of  
> the LGPL-covered program. The most commonly used method for doing so  
> is to use "a suitable shared library mechanism for linking".  
> Alternatively, a statically linked library is allowed if either  
> source code or linkable object files are provided.[2]

Of course releasing the source code is also fine, but it's never required.

> The most common solution is to compile LGPL code into a  
> shared/dynamic library.

This is currently quite hard with FPC, as every library compiled with  
FPC contains its own RTL and hence does not share the RTL state with  
the applications that use it. To solve that, you need Delphi-style  
dynamic packages support, which Sven is working on.


Jonas


Jonas