On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 17:59 +0000, John Spray wrote: > On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 23:07 +0100, Riccardo wrote: > > I'have got a very briefe question: we want to close our source for > > competitive reasons and then sell it to support our laboratory; I have > > read the LGPL license but still something is not clear: at the moment I > > very basically inherit, for example, GTK::Window to create a customized > > window for my application, don't a brake the license if i close the > > source[as my derived class is actually a GTKmm class with some tunes]? > > It's not made explicit in the LGPL version 2, although I believe that in > the LGPL version 3 it is likely to be clarified[1] to state that > subclassing does not constitute a derivative work. > > Technically speaking, when you inherit from a class in a dynamically > linked library in C++ the parent class's member functions are still > dynamically linked to, and as such you are still creating an application > rather than a derivative work. On the other hand, when you override all > a class's functions, your headers can end up effectively containing a > direct copy of the class member declarations from the gtkmm headers, > which could be interpreted as overstepping the license, although I don't > think I've ever heard anyone make that claim seriously.
C++ has nothing to do with this. C libraries have headers too, and struct declarations. There is no question that gtkmm may be used by closed-source proprietary applications. > Perhaps it would be a good idea to take an official position (Murray C?) > and state it on gtkmm.org -- I've noticed a couple of other projects > doing this[3]. > > John > > 1. http://gplv3.fsf.org/lgpl-draft-2006-07-27.html > 2. http://gtkmm.org/license.shtml > 3. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=subclass+%22our+interpretation > +of+the+LGPL%22&btnG=Search > > _______________________________________________ > gtkmm-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list -- Murray Cumming [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.murrayc.com www.openismus.com _______________________________________________ gtkmm-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
