[Haskell-cafe] base-4 + gtk2hs-0.10.0 licensing

[Duncan Coutts]

On Wed, 2009-02-25 at 14:22 +0300, Victor Nazarov wrote:
> I wonder what software licence I can use to release my application.
> I've developed some education tool with the following dependencies:
> 
> % ghci Main.hs
> GHCi, version 6.10.1: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/  :? for help
> Loading package ghc-prim ... linking ... done.
> Loading package integer ... linking ... done.
> Loading package base ... linking ... done.
> Ok, modules loaded: Main, UI, Lambda, Lambda.Eval, Lambda.Zipper,
> Lambda.Show, Lambda.Parser, Lambda.Common.
> Prelude Main> main
> Loading package syb ... linking ... done.
> Loading package array-0.2.0.0 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package containers-0.2.0.0 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package bytestring-0.9.1.4 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package Win32-2.2.0.0 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package parsec-2.1.0.1 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package mtl-1.1.0.2 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package old-locale-1.0.0.1 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package time-1.1.2.2 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package glib-0.10.0 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package cairo-0.10.0 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package gtk-0.10.0 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package glade-0.10.0 ... linking ... done.
> 
> I just don't know the options and I think licensing is subtle enough
> to ask for suggestions.

Note that glib, gtk, cairo and glade are LGPL-2 (both the C libs and the
Haskell libs). So that does not affect your license much. Read the LGPL
version 2 for the details.

Note that some people will tell you that by a strict interpretation of
the LGPL that statically linked Haskell libs under that license are a
pain in the backside. When we decided on that license for gtk2hs that
was not our intention. In other words nobody is going to sue you if you
statically link gtk2hs libs. Of course if you need a cast iron legal
guarantee then that's not good enough and you'd have to ship .a and .o
files to let users relink if they wanted to.

Duncan