You are missing one key element of the LGPL. It requires that the the LGPL distributed code be replaceable/upgradeable by the client. But, I don't see how this could affect the selling of your client's business/website though. This protection is designed to prevent a proprietary software vendor from staticly linking to an LGPL library and then selling the resulting binary (i.e., to prevent the client from not being able to chose which version of the LGPL library to use).
jbw Joe Simms wrote: > Hi All > > I am having lengthy discussions with one of my clients about > Licensing, you're all jealous aren't you!!! > > They are fully aware that i am using symfony, and as it is a small > project and we have no formal contract in place, i have agreed to > release my code under the MIT license as well, purely for ease and > the lack of guarantee / warranty attached. > > They are however questioning the fact that symfony is combined with > LGPL licensed software (Propel, Creole), and that this will affect > their ability to sell the business / website in the future, as they > have been told by someone "really clever" that open source software > is BAD when it comes to this!!! > > As far as i understand, LGPL allows you to combine it with other > compatible licenses (MIT, BSD etc), add your own code and resell and > re-license as proprietary software, and even distribute as closed > source, however, if you ever make any changes to the core files > distributed under LGPL, you must make them available as LGPL. > Therefore, i cannot see how this will affect their ability to sell > the business / website in the future, just that they will have an > obligation to share any modifications made to the LGPL libraries with > the open source community. I think it is fair to say that LGPL is > more there to protect the open source project from being hijacked by > some big multinational and making everyone pay for it, other than > that its a pretty flexible license i think, or is it!!!! > > Has anyone had issues like this before, or can someone point to some > resource i can show my clients, or anything that will help me bring > this damn issue to an end. > > I think that as symfony bundles these projects by default, it should > explain this more clearly, as initially i thought the entire > framework was MIT, including third party libs, but obviously that is > not the case as Propel and Creole are LGPL. This should be made > clearer IMHO. Also if the plugin policy is MIT only, then technically > Propel could never be an official plugin, ouch!!! > > I think Propel were considering releasing 2.0 as MIT, and i asked the > project lead for Doctrine if they would release as MIT, but not too > sure they liked the idea as it lacks protection. Having had this > conversation with my client, it has become a bit of an issue for me, > and i think that as symfony is becoming a player in the framework > arena it may be able to request that these libraries be released > under MIT for official integration with 1.0, but that maybe pushing > our luck and not possible. > > Ultimately i think it is fair to say that a clean MIT licence > throughout would be desirable. > > Thanks in advance . > > Joe > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "symfony developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/symfony-devs?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
