On Sat, Jun 24, 2006 at 12:03:01AM +0200, Micha Nelissen wrote:
> Carlo Kok wrote:
> > Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
> >> They can be, why not ? Nothing is said about this...
> >
> > I'm asking, I'm curious. Though I guess a commercial package wouldn't
> > actually be linking to the ide (gpl) but to the visual controls (gpl +
> > exception?) it wouldn't be required to be gpl?
>
> Indeed, they are derived from, and using, the visual controls which are
> LGPL+exception, and as such they do not need to be licensed under the GPL.
Carlo is right afaik. It is shady in the current situation (at least
from license text, not developer intention).
The negative view:
The problem is that GPL defines larger works by linking. So
nothwithstanding the fact that the controls derive from LGPL (+relaxations)
they still meet the GPL code in the final Laz binary. And plugins are still
hardlinked in.
The positive view:
- documented plugin mechanims are usually considered an exception to this
and code not being part of the larger work, even though it meets in the
library. The problem with this view is that usually these are realised using
dynamical linking, while in Lazarus they are static (but supported and
documented and it doesn't require to accept an license in the IDE before
installing a plugin), for which I can't think of a precedent.
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