LGPL is Viral for Java

carlfish writes "According to this post to POI-dev, Dave Turner (Mr License) of the FSF has decreed that the steps required to use an LGPL'd Java library will actually infect client code with substantial GNU-ness via Section 6 of the LGPL. (The "Lesser" GPL is supposed to protect only the Library, without infecting code using the library) This, as you might imagine, puts a few LGPL Java projects that previously thought they were embeddable without being viral in a bit of a bind. Various weblogs have further coverage." Update: 07/18 02:44 GMT by CN : The FSF's Executive Director, Brad Kuhn adds "LGPL's S. 6 allows you to make new works that link with the LGPL'ed code, and license them any way you see fit. Only the LGPL'ed code itself must remain Free. Such 'client code' can even be proprietary; it need not be LGPL'ed."

Comments

This is nice, but...

[mcgroarty]

This is all very nice, but it's not the win we're waiting for:

Will Apple PLEASE hurry up and link GPL'd code against their lickability??!?!??

We WILL have it!!!1!

Re:FSF's interpretation are not very relevant

[Omega]

The FSF's interpretation of the LGPL only applies to software owned by the FSF. If I had a different interpretation of the LGPL (which is certainly possible -- many parts are quite vague), that interpretation would apply to my software, and the FSF can do nothing about it.

Technically, when you "LGPL" your code, you sign away license rights for that software release to the FSF. That is why if someone violates the license of your GPL'ed program, the FSF can step in (with their lawyers) to defend your licensing rights. You are still the program's copyright owner, and you can reissue your program under another license if you like (though you can't "retract" your original release).

This all only applies if you do not modify the GPL or LGPL text in your distribution. Once you modify the text, it is no longer a GPL or LGPL, and the FSF cannot and will not defend your licensing rights. So while you are certainly free to add the requirement that someone "Buys you a beer next time they're in Boston," to your license, you should understand that this means your license is no longer GPL or LGPL and the FSF cannot protect it.

Another real-world example is Pine. Early versions of Pine had a BSD-like license, which allows "modification and distribution". The University of Waterloo interpreted this to mean that you could modify Pine, or distribute an unmodified Pine, but not distribute a modified Pine. This was contrary to everybody else's interpretation, but they owned the copyright so they got to decide. (More recent versions have a different license).

Actually it's the University of Washington (not Waterloo) that wrote Pine (from Mutt which was licensed under BSD). And I am very familiar with the restrictions on distributing modified binaries. :) There are certain sticky areas surrounding Pine's license. I am not allowed to "check-in" modified pine source files in CVS (only the diff's). I am not allowed to distribute RPMs. But I can distribute the unmodified Pine source and the patches (along with a GUI to automatically patch the source for the user and compile it on their machine). I've spoken with their computer dept. and cleared this all with them. As you said, it's their code and their copyright. So I need to be sure to play by their rules.

Re:The GPL is like a Vaccine

[swv3752]

Wrong. MS could take some BSD code, leave it unchanged and charge $100 and not provide the source. If you are going to call copyright violations "Piracy", then I call taking the BSD code and not releasing changes as theft.

Huh?

[maloi]

Reading over Section 6 of the LGPL left me at a complete loss as to how the LGPL could possibly considered 'viral,' regardless of you're talking about Java .jar files or shared libraries. Someone care to explain a little bit more thoroughly than the post linked to in this article?

Re:The GPL is like a Vaccine

[jamie(really)]

GPL is "free" with a little f. Its free as in beer. GPL is not FREE, as in liberty, because it has a whole set of restrictive clauses set upon it. The restrictions force the code to remain "free" (as in beer). They do not force the code to remain Free (as in liberty), because, for example, I can take the code and modify it within my company and never release it to the outside world. It says: if you make any proprietary changes, you must not distribute it unless you also do x,y and z. Thats not Freedom.

BSD on the other hand is Free (as in liberty) because it allows anyone to do anything with the code as the license applies to it. For example, if I add code to BSD'd code, the BSD license does not force itself on this *new* code that *I* have written.

Its really simple.