LGPL clarification

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi,

On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 11:13:38AM -0500, Bryan George wrote:

> - Assuming there are no such circumstances, are there any GPL-compatible
> licenses that behave similarly to the LGPL, but without the "obnoxious
> modification and reverse engineering clause"?

I am not sure about your interpretation of the LGPL. But you might be
interested in the way the FSF distributes for example guile and classpath.
They are distributed as GPL plus an exception when you link the whole
library. It could be seen as a simplified version of the LGPL.

This how Classpath says it:

GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
any later version.
 
GNU Classpath is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307 USA.

As a special exception, if you link this library with other files to
produce an executable, this library does not by itself cause the
resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License.
This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the
executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.

And this is how guile says it:

 [... GPL ...]
 * As a special exception, the Free Software Foundation gives permission
 * for additional uses of the text contained in its release of GUILE.
 *
 * The exception is that, if you link the GUILE library with other files
 * to produce an executable, this does not by itself cause the
 * resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License.
 * Your use of that executable is in no way restricted on account of
 * linking the GUILE library code into it.
 *
 * This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why
 * the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.
 *
 * This exception applies only to the code released by the
 * Free Software Foundation under the name GUILE.  If you copy
 * code from other Free Software Foundation releases into a copy of
 * GUILE, as the General Public License permits, the exception does
 * not apply to the code that you add in this way.  To avoid misleading
 * anyone as to the status of such modified files, you must delete
 * this exception notice from them.
 *
 * If you write modifications of your own for GUILE, it is your choice
 * whether to permit this exception to apply to your modifications.
 * If you do not wish that, delete this exception notice.

Cheers,

Mark