Re: "LGPL API" (was: Re: Private company and code salvation)

[John W. Eaton]

On 29-Sep-2008, Sergei Steshenko wrote:

| For some reason you did not consider this important statement in my 
| original message:
| 
| "
| ALSA lib - the thing end user needs for his/her audio application - is
| a DLL - IIRC.
| ".

How do you know that I did not consider it?

| That is, end users are supposed to write both open and closed source
| application talking to kernel + ALSA dirvers through ALSA lib.

Yes, I understand that's what you are claiming, and apparently that
some people think it is OK to have a library distributed under the
terms of the LGPL as a "glue layer" between software distributed under
the terms of the GPL and some other software distributed under a
non-GPL-compatible license.  And apparently you are claiming that the
fact that the link is dynamic makes some difference.  It seems fairly
clear to me that GPLv3 does not allow that (see sections 5 and 6).
Earlier versions of the GPL were not as clear, but I believe the
intent was the same.  As far as I can tell, the only point up for
question is whether the parts that are distributed under a
non-GPL-compatible license form a derivative work.  I would claim that
a .oct file does as it necessarily uses internal Octave data
structures.

| I did not mean ALSA drivers could be closed source.

Please consider avoiding the term "closed source".  See for example

  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Closed

jwe