Physical file organisation of any bearing to LGPL?

[Wilson, Andrew]

Mark Wielaard [mailto:mark at klomp.org] wrote:

> The FSF has a page on LGPL and Java:
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-java.html
> "The only difference between Java and C from the LGPL's perspective is
> that Java is an object-oriented language, supporting inheritance. The
> LGPL contains no special provisions for inheritance, because none are
> needed. Inheritance creates derivative works in the same way as
> traditional linking, and the LGPL permits this type of derivative work
> in the same way as it permits ordinary function calls."

Mark, thanks for the link.

> The usage of GPL + Classpath Exception comes from when GNU Classpath and
> libgcj were merged (back in 1999). libgcj used a GPL + Exception style
> license because it was part of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) which
> uses that kind of license to facilitate certain kinds of staticly build
> embedded systems. The LGPL has some requirements giving the user the
> freedom to replace the library with their own copy, which are sometimes
> hard to obey in small embedded systems that don't contain a shared
> library loader. This isn't an issue for traditional java-like runtimes.
> But comes up when using GCJ as Ahead Of Time (AOT) static compiler on
> java source code. Which is used a lot in the small embedded device space
> to get something java-like to program against, but without the dynamic
> java runtime parts. Before the merge of the projects GNU Classpath used
> plain LGPL, now that it is (also) part of GCC it uses a similar kind of
> license as other GCC runtime libraries (although most other runtime
> libraries have been upgraded to [L]GPLv3 + exception, we are keeping GNU
> Classpath on GPLV2+ for now to be compatible with Sun/Oracle OpenJDK
> work).

And thanks again for the comprehensive info on library licensing.  To which,
let me say, Whew!  So, over time, for various libraries, FSF has used

LGPLv2.1
GPLv2 + Classpath exception
GPLv2 + runtime exception (similar to Classpath but subtly different)
LGPLv3
(L)GPLv3 + runtime exception (subtly different from the GPLv2 runtime exception)

Let me just reiterate that anyone who really cares about getting license
compliance just right needs to consult with a real lawyer....

Cheers

Andy Wilson
Intel open source technology center