Picking a license

[Robert Kern]

On 2010-05-14 21:37 , Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Fri, 14 May 2010 06:42:31 -0700, Ed Keith wrote:
>
>> I am not a lawyer, but as I understand the LGPL, If I give someone
>> something that used any LGPLed code I must give them the ability to
>> relink it with any future releases of the LGPLed code. I think that
>> means that I need to give them a linker and teach them how to use it,
>> and I do not want to go there.
>
> Surely you're joking?
>
> Does this mean that if they lose their hands in an accident, you have to
> come sit at their computer and do their typing?
>
> The LGPL and GPL don't grant people "the ability" to do anything, since
> that's not within our power to grant. Some people don't want to, or
> can't, program, or don't have time. It's not like the LGPL is the bite of
> a radioactive spider that can grant superpowers. It is a licence which
> grants *permissions*.

No, the LGPL requires you to do something extra to enable your users to be able 
to relink your program. You need to provide the ability to do this, up to some 
unspecified and untested limit of reasonableness (your example is obviously 
beyond the limit of reasonableness). You can't just give them, say, a statically 
linked program and nothing else. You can't require for-fee, proprietary linkers. 
This is usually not hard to do (just give them unlinked .o or .obj files and a 
Makefile or project file), but it is *not* just a matter of granting permissions.

But you're right, you don't have to teach them how to do it.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco