From: Lothar Scholz <mailinglists@...>
Date: 2004-08-07T03:31:21+09:00
Subject: Re: Amazing GUI toolkit with visual designer & Ruby Integration

Hello Ben,


BG> Having said that, Lothar is incorrect.

Yes. I was wrong.

BG> The GPL and LGPL require you to do much more than place a diff file on a
BG> website.  I read through the LGPL, and I won't pretend to understand
BG> exactly what it requires, but here are some relevant sections:

Okay, lets talk about dynamically linked libraries. Static ones seems
to have a huge problem.

With this i think i could supply only the diff, the original tgz file
and put a paragraph like this on the website.

--------------------
If you want to use your own FOX library with this program you can substitute the
delivered "fox.so" by downloading the files "patch.diff" and
"fox-1.1.51.tgz" (or your compatible one) from my website and then build
it with the following command line:

tar -xzf fox-1.1.52.tgz ; patch "patch.diff" "fox-1.1.51" ; cd fox-1.1.52; .configure ; make

Replace "fox.so" in the program directory with the freshly build
".lib/fox.so" file.
--------------------

And then i put a small comment to all the other things i tell my user
in the About box.

Is this okay ?

... snip ......

BG> "For an executable, the required form of the "work that uses the 
BG> Library" must include any data and utility programs needed for 
BG> reproducing the executable from it. However, as a special exception, the
BG> materials to be distributed need not include anything that is normally
BG> distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components
BG> (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the
BG> executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable."

This could be a show stopper for LGPL libraries, especially on windows.

How can i include a commercial compiler like MSVC (it's free for
download but you can't distribute it on you own website) into my
modified library ?
There are LGPL'ed Delphi libraries available, how can they confirm
with the license.

Can i now sue Jeroen as a revenge because he don't give away
micrsosofts c compiler ? I mean version 1.1 of FOX is of course a
modified version of 1.0.

What happened when in 4 years someone want to compile the program and
the compiler evolved backward incompatible ?

BG> But, like I said, I don't fully understand the LGPL or the GPL and would
BG> suggest that anybody who is thinking of using them and wants to avoid
BG> redistribution of their source code under the same license should be
BG> careful and probably consult a lawyer.

Right i wish that more people would offer there libraries under a BSD
license. I guess that most people would stop using LGPL libraries if
they knew all the problems that can raise from the simple use.
But as far as i know no court in the world had ever accepted the LGPL,
there are only a few cases for the GPL and this license seems to be
compatible with the current law (at least in the USA and in Germany).

Reading only a few sections of the LGPL then i think that it is just
an invalid license.


-- 
 Best regards,                        emailto: scholz at scriptolutions dot com
 Lothar Scholz                        http://www.ruby-ide.com
 CTO Scriptolutions                   Ruby, PHP, Python IDE 's