Re: [Caml-list] Announce: Schoca-0.2.3 released

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 03:18:09PM +1000, skaller wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-10-25 at 12:58, David Brown wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 04:29:59AM +1000, skaller wrote:
> > 
> > > It would be useful when making an anouncement if you could
> > > specify the licence. This saves wasting time. 
> > > 
> > > On the home page it says:
> > > 
> > > "This software is free for free software. It is released under the GPL."
> > > 
> > > Hmm. So if I link it against the Ocaml standard libraries,
> > > they have to be GPL'd too. But they're not ..
> > 
> > What???  
> 
> I'm wrong, LGPL specifically allows change of licence to GPL.
> Sorry.

Well, i personally was under the impression that when you link a LGPLed and a
GPLed work together, the result needs to be under the more restricive licence,
namely the GPL. This is indeed what you can read in point 3 of the LGPL, which
is the one you seem to mention : 

    3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public
    License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library.  To do
    this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so
    that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2,
    instead of to this License.  (If a newer version than version 2 of the
    ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify
    that version instead if you wish.)  Do not make any other change in
    these notices.
    ^L
    Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for
    that copy, so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all
    subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy.

    This option is useful when you wish to copy part of the code of
    the Library into a program that is not a library.

This basically says, that you are allowed to use LGPLed code, and integrate it
into GPLed code. I doubt that the ocaml runtime library exception is
compatible with the GPL though, not really sure.

Anyway, this kind of compatbility is not the same as merely linking with
LGPLed code, and the resulting binary is under the GPL, which may or may not
have been your intentions.

Friendly,

Sven Luther