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Re: Can LGPL be used for non-libraries


From: Isaac
Subject: Re: Can LGPL be used for non-libraries
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 20:20:12 -0600
User-agent: slrn/0.9.7.4 (Linux)

On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 22:22:34 +0100, Merijn de Weerd 
<merijn+nospam@realemail.net> wrote:
> On 2006-02-26, Isaac <isaac@latveria.castledoom.org> wrote:
>> On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:59:23 +0200, Daniel Qarras <dqarras@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> Sorry for being pedantic here but I am considering to use LGPL for a 
>>> software package that is not a software library in any sense and 
>>> therefore I would need to know exactly how to do it when LGPL is 
>>> actually requiring modifications to be software libraries.
>>
>> What rights are hoping to allow people to take advantage of that
>> are not available under the GPL?  
> 
> The right to modify a non-library that is licensed under the
> Library GPL. How can I satisty LGPL 2a) that says:
> "The modified work must itself be a software library."
> when the original clealry is not a software library?

Are you speaking for Daniel or as one of Daniel's users?

>From the user perspective even a non library work can be compiled as a library 
with no changes to the source.  Some modification or additions might be needed
to make that library reasonable useful.  Thus there is no inconsistency with 
releasing a non library work under the LGPL.  Perhaps for you 2a) is not 
useful because you do not want to release a modified library.

If you don't like those choices the LGPL allows you to instead distribute 
the modified code under the GPL if the final work is not a library.

So only the question posed by the author is important.  IMO the question is
one of communication rather than of license restriction.  Assuming the author
wrote all of the code, only the author has the right to sue for copyright
infringement.  If the author does not intend to sue when his non library
program is modified and distributed not as a library, he does not have to.  
So the question becomes an issue of whether the LGPL conveys the author's 
intent.

Since I don't know exactly what the author intended by the original question,
unless you are also Daniel in addition to being Merijn, I cannot answer the
latter question.

Isaac


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