LGPL 2.1 + GPL 3 = problems?

[John Cowan]

Smith, McCoy scripsit:

> FSF put out a matrix relating to the compatability of various FSF
> licenses:
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AllCompatibility
> 
> The answer on LGPL 2.1 + GPL 3 is a bit complex, and requires a
> footnote.

That matrix is useful, but it's about physically incorporating code
rather than constructing a larger work with LGPLed components, which
is what the OP was (mostly) asking about.  That remains no problem: an
LGPLed library combined with GPL version X components can and must be
released as a whole under GPL version X.  (If there are other components,
they must be compatible with GPL version X, of course.)

What's annoying is that GPLv2-only and GPLv3-only components cannot
be combined into a larger work.  Consequently, the original commons
of GPLv2 work is now divided into a GPLv2 commons and a GPLv3 commons,
with a large overlap due to dual licensing.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org  http://ccil.org/~cowan
And now here I was, in a country where a right to say how the country should
be governed was restricted to six persons in each thousand of its population.
For the nine hundred and ninety-four to express dissatisfaction with the
regnant system and propose to change it, would have made the whole six
shudder as one man, it would have been so disloyal, so dishonorable, such
putrid black treason.  --Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee