[Haskell-cafe] (L)GPL libraries & Haskell/GHC (was: Re: ANNOUNCE: tie-knot library)

Petr P petr.mvd at gmail.com
Wed Dec 12 11:00:38 CET 2012


I asked that on SO: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/q/179084/61231
So far the best answer is wxWidget's license (LGPL + linking exception)
which at least has been approved by OSI (although FSF approval would have
been better).

Best regards,
Petr


2012/12/12 Ivan Lazar Miljenovic <ivan.miljenovic at gmail.com>

> On 12 December 2012 12:57, Nicolas Trangez <nicolas at incubaid.com> wrote:
> > Note: IANAL
> >
> > On Tue, 2012-12-11 at 17:45 -0800, David Thomas wrote:
> >> On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 5:35 PM, Brandon Allbery <allbery.b at gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >>
> >> > (Oddly enough, GPL is not the only open source license.)
> >>
> >> There was no implication to the contrary.  It was stated that BSD is a
> >> *weaker* license - this is true in the sense that it has fewer
> requirements
> >> (in particular, no copyleft) - and that "strong copyleft" licenses such
> as
> >> the GPL should be preferred as they do more to bolster the free software
> >> community.  You can disagree with this claim (there are arguments both
> ways
> >> - delving into them is not my point here) but please try not to bring in
> >> straw men.
> >
> > Actually the library is made available under the LGPL-3 license,
> > according to its README, not the GPL (although the latter is implicit,
> > of course).
> >
> > In the Haskell world this does have a different effect compared to when
> > one uses the LGPL for, say, a C library though, since (at least for now)
> > GHC uses/defaults to static linking, which IIRC (though IANAL) turns the
> > LGPL into GPL, so this has a severe impact for application authors. This
> > might be something people aren't aware of when releasing Haskell
> > libraries using the LGPL.
> >
> > I tend to use the LGPL myself for most library-style projects, and do so
> > as well for Haskell code (although I'm aware of the drawbacks), but I'm
> > perfectly fine with people linking the libs statically as long as they
> > comply to the license "as if they were using dynamic loading".
> >
> > If anyone knows some standard license which boils down to "obligations
> > like LGPL but OK for static linking as well", please let me know.
>
> I too would like such a license; however, the closest I've seen is
> LGPL + linking exception (which I believe is the license Malcolm
> Wallace uses for the cpphs library, though not the executable).
>
> >
> > Nicolas
> >
> >
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>
>
> --
> Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
> Ivan.Miljenovic at gmail.com
> http://IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
>
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