Here’s what FSF says about incompatibility:  
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#apache2
It discusses GPLv3 (compatible) & GPLv2 (incompatible) but not LGPL.
FWIW John Sullivan is looking to update the FSF FAQ and this is issue he might 
want to write a new FAQ on.  Do you mind if I share this thread with him?



From: License-discuss [mailto:license-discuss-boun...@lists.opensource.org] On 
Behalf Of Bruce Perens via License-discuss
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2019 1:25 PM
To: Bryan Christ <bryan.chr...@gmail.com>
Cc: Bruce Perens <br...@perens.com>; license-discuss@lists.opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Question about LGPL 2.1 and APL 2.0 Compatibility

Well, obviously the Apache license permits these things, so no concern 
regarding your question.

A proprietary license that entirely prohibited modification to the extent of 
preventing re-linking with a modified LGPL library, or that prevented the 
reverse-engineering necessary to debug that modification, would not be 
compatible with LGPL 2.1 .

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 1:22 PM Bryan Christ 
<bryan.chr...@gmail.com<mailto:bryan.chr...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Sorry for being dense here, but can you explain this a bit more?

And I didn't completely state all of the requirements of LGPL 2.1 on the 
non-LGPL piece: the terms [must] permit modification of the work for the 
customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications.

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 2:42 PM Bruce Perens 
<br...@perens.com<mailto:br...@perens.com>> wrote:
It's definitely relevant between APL and GPL, because GPL places requirements 
that the terms of the entire work do not include restrictions beyond those in 
the GPL. LGPL doesn't say that.

And I didn't completely state all of the requirements of LGPL 2.1 on the 
non-LGPL piece: the terms [must] permit modification of the work for the 
customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications.

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 12:29 PM Bryan Christ 
<bryan.chr...@gmail.com<mailto:bryan.chr...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I came across a discussion about a patent clause contention between APL 2.0 and 
LGPL 2.1 and wasn't sure how/if that was relevant.

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 2:26 PM Bruce Perens via License-discuss 
<license-discuss@lists.opensource.org<mailto:license-discuss@lists.opensource.org>>
 wrote:
Yes to both. For the same reasons you could link both to proprietary software. 
Neither license applies terms to works they are combined with, except for lgpl 
requiring that it is possible to upgrade or modify the lgpl software and for 
the combination to be capable of being relinked. Was there any particular 
reason that you thought this might not be possible?

Thanks

Bruce

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 11:04 Bryan Christ 
<bryan.chr...@gmail.com<mailto:bryan.chr...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I am the author of a library that is licensed under the LGPL 2.1.  It's very 
clear that a closed source work can dynamically link to the library.  That's 
easy to understand.  There are 2 other scenarios however that I am unclear 
about:

1.  Can a LGPL 2.1 dynamically link to an APL 2.0 library or binary?
2.  Can an APL 2.0 binary dynamically link to a LGPL 2.1 library?

I did a lot of searching on the web first and couldn't find anything covering 
this.

Thanks in advance to whoever replies.

--
Bryan
<><
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