Re: xinetd license possibly violates DFSG #4

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 08:49:41AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:
> Glenn Maynard writes:
> 
> > The only reasons the LGPL is GPL-compatible are 1: the LGPL-to-GPL downgrade
> > clause (LGPL#3), and 2: the "operating system" exception (GPL#3), which is
> > irrelevant for Debian.  A work under a modified GPL would lose #1, as well,
> > so it seems that the LGPL would be incompatible with that license--which
> > includes glibc, probably making it practically useless, even if DFSG-free.
> 
> Software licensed under a mutant form of the GPL would be of limited
> use as free software, but the LGPL (see section 6) only requires the
> binary form of a "work that uses the Library" to allow (a) unlimited
> use, (b) reverse engineering, and (c) re-linking with a different
> version of the Library.  I do not think any program would get into
> non-free if it disallowed any of those three requirements.

However, the GPL imposes its own restrictions on the resulting binaries,
essentially saying "all linked libraries must be available under the
terms of the GPL".  This isn't a problem with the LGPL only because of
LGPL clause 3; without that, the libraries would not, in fact, be available
under the terms of the GPL, since the LGPL imposes different restrictions
than the GPL.

(Just in case I'm not clear, the question I'm raising is whether linking
a modified-GPL against an LGPL library is in violation of the modified
GPL--not whether it's in violation of the LGPL.)

-- 
Glenn Maynard