-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 11/19/2015 03:27 AM, Alex Gagniuc wrote: > The article you linked does not make any legal argument as to why > an LGPLv3 library cannot be used in a GPLv2 project. I'd be curious > to know why lawyers think the two cannot coexist. In all practical > aspects, if you satisfy the "update library" requirement of > LGPLv3, you've already satisfied the tivoization clause, and > imposed no further restrictions on either the GPL or LGPL parts. > > This incompatibility idea seems like unfounded FUD. >
Hi Alex, thanks for sharing your point. I wish you are right, that I am just being paranoid and worrying about an incompatibility that does not apply, but I am not a lawyer either. The problem I am raising is not related to coexistence of the two licenses. By distributing libopencm3 with a LGPL license, you are basically enforcing requirements on derivative works, which are the same as GPL3. Now my worry is related to the fact that linking any app or other libraries may (or hopefully may not) constitute a "derivative work based on the library" rather than merely "using the library as a component". I am sure you have experience e.g. of people linking the lib with proprietary software. Since in embedded there is no clear line of separation as there is for dynamically linked software on your Linux box, I would expect that you consider "normal usage" of the library even these border cases where the library is statically linked in the same elf. Unfortunately a FSF lawyer could disagree on this point while filing a GPL violation in the case of linking statically with proprietary software. In the same way I could end up with incompatibility between GNU v3 and v2 licenses in my project. In particular at the exact moment I could not comply with any of the clauses in section 4 of your license. Perhaps an explicit clarification on the distinction between the two cases (deriving vs using) could make users understand better the possibilities of linking libopencm3 in each and every context. I think that even if this question is obvious for the libopencm3 community, it might be helpful for your users to explicitly clarify this point, perhaps by adding a short paragraph to the license itself. This distinction seems to be the most difficult thing to define in a LGPL context, if not in the obvious case of shared/dynamic linking suggested at point 4.d.1, which is not applicable in embedded systems core code. For reference, the question is discussed a bit more in details in this tutorial from FSF, especially in sections 10.5 to 10.9: http://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech11.html Regards, - -- Daniele -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJWTZzDAAoJEFrGD357h4/9RVUP/33gmEvHqO2t6xLzrzFKLxzi 2Vyu9Ocfw70fEpa5s10gerDID53bTLYA0dT77jkJ+gysDq9nLfN5oOQ+2kQf58ye 2dTbEwd7lHm4KC1XSTLv9j5WiacjCgsKvS4RgZJ+rFOTR5DDW32MKB1kpNJC/K1m eNYlQS6522NctJ2XBb02HGiHvrdCJwh4wafm6QhMVxoGYmkfI3lmltSPV9ap1pUW L3KehQICgmjlOSNmowtvvG3gk4PBRBD9DxOUYlwhgrsbhPjVYqK5gC1u6ozRDXLi reZO5jjuxm24FzKgKPK5/5kRJyfewbyqsOhadRf53R18vHhTWfCAo07fbv+cFb4t DSGLTagbPdH1F6Q/PtihQxtO05x7u9NsRu8ZUBZbjxL3RDRvE9WzzO7Ejr+2Vj5D lfbuB7CSEBaBB2XRO3/xwMgaEqY+b/SEqIgHBne7DH9G5UXBpnzZURthIHzocdFf u4XGhpO7Dx/I8/XXzoZcr80ZzHOV7OCiEfakTCfPzDKwewIPRizmYTXtqDw23X59 DjylDmHLCguAAROrqCg71q1eSRqRNIhWCrvs49h2cSxrX+xRTMkxRFjY3wdJ499Q WRRzg/6/+ivNy9WX8TPCZ/kxVcZBkWlgVsBftGzPDx16afaQxPs404Nt3ojC46hE moQgNxwH2IYwDdvP82xG =fRdl -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ libopencm3-devel mailing list libopencm3-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/libopencm3-devel
