Let me explain what libaio is:
it's a wrapper that makes calls into the kernel. if you for instance open libaio.c, this is the entire source code for io_submit (the most used function): io_syscall3(int, io_submit, io_submit, io_context_t, ctx, long, nr, struct iocb **, iocbs) See for yourself: https://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/libaio.git/log/ Open libaio.spec: on the definition: This library, libaio, provides the Linux-native API for async I/O. Anyways, Saying you can't depend on anything LGPL is the same as saying you can't depend on Linux or anything coming from Linux. for instance Apache HTTP (the very first project that founded this organization) would be breaking the apache license itself by using libc. (Open the source code if you don't believe me). It's certainly not the case...as libc is a platform API. libaio is also a platform API. hence the definition that HIram found...
