Re: [xmlvm-users] Publishing XMLVM applications

[Panayotis K. <pan...@pa...>]

On Jan 9, 2011, at 12:25 AM, Leo Izen wrote:

> I have good news. I think that the apple app store licence doesn't have restrictions on where the source code comes from (but I'm not sure).
> 
> Question: Does source code created with XMLVM have to be licensed under LGPL? The question becomes a fact of whether any code created with xmlvm counts as a derivative work. My guess would be that we could bend it and say no. Because the code would have been written by the developer, it was from scratch. XMLVM just converted it (from java to c/objective-c) so it wasn't derived from XMLVM, it was just a component of it. i.e. If I write a front-end to a library, then that's derivative. But if I just use one thing in an unrelated program (such as zlib in a word processor) then the unrelated program (the processor) would not be derived from the used code (zlib). This is ok because we are using LGPL, so this theory applies. As long as developers of xmlvm don't go ahead and sue users of xmlvm for not licensing xmlvm-converted code under LGPL (which they shouldn't be able to do anyway) then I think we should be fine.

The problem is not with the code written by a developer. This issue is clear and closed. All code written by you has the license you decide, as long as it is compatible with LGPL (which practically allows even closed source software to do so).

The problem arises with the compatibility/glue library, which is distributed along your binary code (and is LGPL). 

Right now I don't believe there is a direct problem with the AppStore and the LGPL license.  But I am not a lawyer and probably Apple would prefer to drop an application instead of sit and solve the situation. Since we have the core developers agreement that the compatibility library would always be in a license compatible with commercial distribution, this is enough for me.