On Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:26:31 +0100 John Emmas <john...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote: > On 20 Sep 2011, at 07:11, Andy Tai wrote: > > > come on... gtkmm is LGPL... > > > > Interesting.... I just checked this on the gtkmm web site and > discovered that it's actually released under the "GNU Library General > Public License". After further reading it seems that inclusion of > the word "Library" indicates that this is an old version of what > later morphed into the "Lesser General Public License" or "LGPL". > Technically though, it's neither GPL nor LGPL in the modern sense. > Clause 5 of the "Library" General Public License states:- > > " linking a "work that uses the Library" with the Library creates an > executable that is a derivative of the Library" > > [...] > > " if the work is a derivative of the Library, you may distribute the > object code for the work under the terms of Section 6. Any > executables containing that work also fall under Section 6, whether > or not they are linked directly with the Library itself. " > > However, sections 6 and 2 seem to state the you need only distribute > the source code for any changes you made to the library. For example > if your executable uses classes derived from gtkmm, you must release > those classes (and any modifications that were needed to gtkmm) as a > new library in its own right. However, those parts of the executable > which make no use of gtkmm do not need to be released. > > So it's probably closer to the LGPL than to the GPL but you might > still need to release parts of your source code.
As far as I am aware the only difference between the Library General Public Licence v2, and the Lesser General Public Licence v2.1 is the change of name. gtkmm is released under the LGPL-2.0 or later, at the choice of the user. That includes the LGPL-3.0, which would be the choice of any C++ developer because of the template exemption. Chris _______________________________________________ gtk-app-devel-list mailing list gtk-app-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-app-devel-list
