Re: [xmlvm-users] status and (L)GPL

[Hansi R. <su...@su...>]

> Please have a look:
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html
> Section 4d
>
> If my rough interpretation above is correct, then I do not see how any
> user, even with developer knowledge, would be able to modify a
> distributed iPhone app (as one example) and be able to continue to use it.

my feeling kinda agrees with thorsten,
i'm not sure lgpl is "lose" enough because the resulting files contain
a mix of "your" translated code that is stuffed into pre-written
(lgpl) skeletons.
this is neither inheritance nor linking, the two ways i know of in
which the lgpl doesn't force the main application to be lgpl as well.

i would say that most code-generating programs will have a problem like this.
for example, look at the bison (parser generator) exception for the
generated code:
http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_node/Conditions.html
(really worth the read, too long to quote)

imho this is mostly the same situation. adding a similar exception or
providing the
skeleton files with a more liberal license (e.g. bsd) would be a safe path.


more to this can found on the gpl-faq, which answers to "can i force
the output of a gpl-program to be gpl as well"?
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput
it says generally no; this is impossible because the output belongs to
the user, however, it also says explicitly
"For instance, part of the output of Bison (see above) would be
covered by the GNU GPL, if we had not made an exception in this
specific case."
this is exactly what i think the problem with xmlvm output is (at this point).



best, hansi.