[License-discuss] Question about LGPL 2.1 and APL 2.0 Compatibility

[Smith, McCoy]

Here’s what FSF says about incompatibility:  https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#apache2
It discusses GPLv3 (compatible) & GPLv2 (incompatible) but not LGPL.
FWIW John Sullivan is looking to update the FSF FAQ and this is issue he might want to write a new FAQ on.  Do you mind if I share this thread with him?



From: License-discuss [mailto:license-discuss-bounces at lists.opensource.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Perens via License-discuss
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2019 1:25 PM
To: Bryan Christ <bryan.christ at gmail.com>
Cc: Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com>; license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Question about LGPL 2.1 and APL 2.0 Compatibility

Well, obviously the Apache license permits these things, so no concern regarding your question.

A proprietary license that entirely prohibited modification to the extent of preventing re-linking with a modified LGPL library, or that prevented the reverse-engineering necessary to debug that modification, would not be compatible with LGPL 2.1 .

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 1:22 PM Bryan Christ <bryan.christ at gmail.com<mailto:bryan.christ at gmail.com>> wrote:
Sorry for being dense here, but can you explain this a bit more?

And I didn't completely state all of the requirements of LGPL 2.1 on the non-LGPL piece: the terms [must] permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications.

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 2:42 PM Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com<mailto:bruce at perens.com>> wrote:
It's definitely relevant between APL and GPL, because GPL places requirements that the terms of the entire work do not include restrictions beyond those in the GPL. LGPL doesn't say that.

And I didn't completely state all of the requirements of LGPL 2.1 on the non-LGPL piece: the terms [must] permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications.

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 12:29 PM Bryan Christ <bryan.christ at gmail.com<mailto:bryan.christ at gmail.com>> wrote:
I came across a discussion about a patent clause contention between APL 2.0 and LGPL 2.1 and wasn't sure how/if that was relevant.

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 2:26 PM Bruce Perens via License-discuss <license-discuss at lists.opensource.org<mailto:license-discuss at lists.opensource.org>> wrote:
Yes to both. For the same reasons you could link both to proprietary software. Neither license applies terms to works they are combined with, except for lgpl requiring that it is possible to upgrade or modify the lgpl software and for the combination to be capable of being relinked. Was there any particular reason that you thought this might not be possible?

Thanks

Bruce

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 11:04 Bryan Christ <bryan.christ at gmail.com<mailto:bryan.christ at gmail.com>> wrote:
I am the author of a library that is licensed under the LGPL 2.1.  It's very clear that a closed source work can dynamically link to the library.  That's easy to understand.  There are 2 other scenarios however that I am unclear about:

1.  Can a LGPL 2.1 dynamically link to an APL 2.0 library or binary?
2.  Can an APL 2.0 binary dynamically link to a LGPL 2.1 library?

I did a lot of searching on the web first and couldn't find anything covering this.

Thanks in advance to whoever replies.

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Bryan
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