Thanks, Chris. Chris Vine wrote: > Having read the LGPL, I personally would not > release important proprietary code based on a templated library licenced > under it, such as libsigc++ (which is where the problem, if there is one, > mainly resides with gtkmm), but I imagine that there are those who take a > different view, such as Jonathon.
There are certainly mixed messages. Forgetting about my own position for the moment (though obviously I will need to resolve it), searching on 'closed' came up with this thread: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg03094.html This has a lot of good stuff in it that we're re-treading here, not least your own. It ends with Murray reluctantly agreeing to contact with FSF people directly on how to handle templates et al. I imagine the lure of licence clarification is likely to create major yawning rather than yearning and it's not obvious that there's been any resolution of this. Given that this is a repeated issue, could we at least get something tangible this time round for other potential library users? Perhaps eg. a FAQ addressing the position of Gtkmm and LGPL as we understand it? The key points might be: - intent is allowing use through shared libraries in all projects both open and proprietary; - but there are q's about whether the LGPL strictly allows this especially regarding longer templates (>10 lines); - the gtkmm team is (or perhaps isn't) considering the possibility of special additional provisions to the LGPL to allow for templates of any length; - the team would(???) require any wording to: a) allow the gtkmm code to be used in another application, open source or proprietary if changes are made, and b) share changes back out so all can benefit - inheritance isn't an issue under LGPL, because of XXX. In the spirit of (L)GPL, I would guess that the team would(???) also require any wording to do the following. Suppose I create a closed source application called Cerrado using gtkmm and sell to Kate who has an enhanced variant of gtkmm (perhaps her own mods). Then you'd probably want Kate to have a fighting chance (limited by eg. any modified templates) of running Cerrado against her version of gtkmm and the right to distribute her gtkmm version for other Cerrado users to use. Hence the shared library solution. (If you do require this, I think it would rule out the libstdc++ licence.) Jonathon asked if I was willing to work with you all on clearing up the ambiguity. If we can get somewhere useful, then I would be. Ultimately, any end-point would probably only be meaningful if it agreed with libsigc++ team. Neil. _______________________________________________ gtkmm-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
