If I wanted to use your HtmlParser project in a commercial application, what would this entail - us releasing all the source code for the rest of our application?
I fully support the idea of open source software, and would be more than happy to contribute to the development of HtmlParser - including any changes we might make to it... *however*, we obviously can't afford to release our own proprietry source code at the moment.
What's the deal on this?
Thanks
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Thanks for bringing up this question. The parser is licensed under LGPL.
This means, applications that USE it dont have to be open-source. But, here
are two restrictions that apply:
[1] Any modifications made to the library itself must be kept open-source or
made available.
[2] Your app source code does not live with the parser source code, but the
object code does. That means - people should either be able to reverse
engineer your product so as to be able to remove the parser library and put
a newer version in (gasp!) or - simply provide an external linkage to the
parser - whereby folks can swap out the current version with a later version
(the idea is to let them have the benefit of the open-source library). That
reverse engineering stuff is actually a cryptic interpretation of the
clause - applicable only if you want to provide a single executable in your
application (it can be bypassed, but I dont want to further complicate the
interpretation for you - let me know if this is the case and I can advise
you accordingly).
Bytway, if you are not distributing your application, and only using it
internally, none of the above applies. Let me know if that answers your
question.
Regards,
Somik
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
If I wanted to use your HtmlParser project in a commercial application, what would this entail - us releasing all the source code for the rest of our application?
I fully support the idea of open source software, and would be more than happy to contribute to the development of HtmlParser - including any changes we might make to it... *however*, we obviously can't afford to release our own proprietry source code at the moment.
What's the deal on this?
Thanks
Thanks for bringing up this question. The parser is licensed under LGPL.
This means, applications that USE it dont have to be open-source. But, here
are two restrictions that apply:
[1] Any modifications made to the library itself must be kept open-source or
made available.
[2] Your app source code does not live with the parser source code, but the
object code does. That means - people should either be able to reverse
engineer your product so as to be able to remove the parser library and put
a newer version in (gasp!) or - simply provide an external linkage to the
parser - whereby folks can swap out the current version with a later version
(the idea is to let them have the benefit of the open-source library). That
reverse engineering stuff is actually a cryptic interpretation of the
clause - applicable only if you want to provide a single executable in your
application (it can be bypassed, but I dont want to further complicate the
interpretation for you - let me know if this is the case and I can advise
you accordingly).
Bytway, if you are not distributing your application, and only using it
internally, none of the above applies. Let me know if that answers your
question.
Regards,
Somik