From: "H. Simpson" Date: 2004-08-06T08:21:26+09:00 Subject: Re: Amazing GUI toolkit with visual designer & Ruby Integration Lyle Johnson wrote: > On Fri, 6 Aug 2004 02:51:39 +0900, H. Simpson > wrote: > > >>While I'm grateful for Fox-Toolkit and FXRuby too, I cannot use it due >>to licensing issues. >> >>To clarify, I'm switching from Fox-Toolkit to FLTK due initially to >>licensing reasons on a commercial project. >> >>I don't mind giving away changes I make to Fox-Toolkit but being >>required to give away the commercial application source that statically >>links to a modified Fox-Toolkit is something that bars me from using it. > > > FOX's license absolutely does *not* require you don't have to give > away the source code to your commercial application(s) that link to it > (statically or otherwise). I know for a fact that this was not > Jeroen's intent. To help clear things up, could you point me to the > part(s) of FOX's license that led you to believe this was the case? > > Lyle, thanks for clarifying. From SECTION 6 of LGPL which applies to any application that is statically linked to a modified version of the Fox-Toolkit: "[...] and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided that the terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications." The terms of the LGPL does not allow software that are derivatives of LGPL libraries to prohibit reverse engineering. Selling software usually means licensing it. And the terms of the license almost always explicitely prohibit reverse engineering. There have been landmark court cases where that particular clause about reverse engineering was very crucial in the outcome of disputes between companies. To me, if I cannot lawfully prohibit customers from reverse-engineering my product in my license agreement or terms of sale, it is practically the same as giving them my source code. I don't mind giving away the source code on my hobby projects but I cannot do so on commercial products that I depend on to pay my family's rent and food. With programming jobs being shipped overseas and so-called "free trade" agreements designed to provide *access to cheaper labor* (rather than "opening overseas markets to USA" as advertised to the misinformed public), we simply don't have the luxury to share as much as we'd like under different circumstances. Further, there is no way I wish to be bound by the remaining portions of LGPL Section 6(a, b, c, d, or e) when there is an alternative product that not only frees me from ANY such obligations on my app, but makes me more productive, have more fun coding AND produces a smaller executable to boot.