Alexander Klenin schrieb:
I see no problem with licensing e.g. the Find dialog under GPL when used in
building the IDE, and under LGPL when used in other applications as part of
the LCL.
Sure, but who has the right to make this decision?
We also could ask, who has the right to refuse such a decision.
In the first place it's the author of some file, who can act however he
likes. For a work with multiple contributors, all contributors must
agree about a decision - in theory. In practice a common project will
restrict the decisions of the contributors, so that no single
contributor can block further development by a veto.
For source files dedicated to the Lazarus project, or to some project
with multiple contributors in general, I'd assume an consent of all
contributors, that the project management stuff is entitled to license
all contributions to that project, in the spirit of the project ("fair
use").
When the spirit of the choosen license models (GPL/LGPL) shall guarantee
the free use and further development of the project, that freedom also
should apply to decisions that are not against this spirit. IOW: no
single contributor should be allowed to deny his consent to a decision
of the community of contributors, unless his rights on his contribution
are affected in an intolerable way ("unfair" use).
[German law specifies both a "community of authors" (§ 8 UrhG:
Miturheber), which contribute to a common work, and a "combined work" (§
9 UrhG: Urheber verbundener Werke). In both cases the authors act as a
community, and no author can deny his consent to the decisions of the
community of authors (unless exacting demand, something like "fair
use"). cum grano salis, IANAL]
And generally, GPL requires derived works to be GPL also.
A work, derived from the Lazarus IDE, has to be licensed under the terms
of the Lazarus IDE. When the IDE license is GPL, the derived work also
must be licensed under GPL.
Usually, IDE depends on LCL and not vice versa, so this is not a problem.
But if enough code migrated from IDE to LCL,
that would IMHO make the latter derived work...
IMO not. Derived work is a different work, based on parts of some other
work. The Lazarus project depends on FPC, but not on itself. The Lazarus
IDE and LCL will stay Lazarus IDE and LCL, not affected by decisions
about what particular files shall be considered as exclusive parts of
the IDE or of the LCL. Such an "exclusive" assignment to a Lazarus
sub-project may be subject to later changes, at the discretion of the
community of authors.
Moving files from an IDE directory into a LCL directory will affect the
users, which then are allowed to use the files according to the LCL
license (LGPL), as stated in COPYING.txt. Only the authors are allowed
to move files in this way, with such consequences, and only when the
spirit of the project is obeyed (fair use).
DoDi
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