Re: [Caml-list] Licenses - Confusion

["Török Edwin" <edwin+ml-ocaml@etorok.net>]

On 05/22/2013 03:34 PM, oliver wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I did publish one of my tools as GPLv3.
> It is written in OCaml.
> 
> Now I saw at another project, that there is the need
> for an "OCaml exception" regarding linking.
> 
> If thats true I may have missed a crucial points
> when thinking about the license for tools written in OCaml.

I think that only matters if you release a *library* under LGPL.

If you do not add the static linking exception then everyone using your library
would have to release their source code too. (also depending on the LGPL version
used it might be unclear whether static linking is a derived work or not).

The LGPL requires people to allow relinking their applications with newer
versions of your LGPL library. But OCaml has interface/implementation digests,
and as such relinking with a newer version would simply fail.
The only way to allow people to relink is to distribute the entire application's
source code to allow people to recompile and relink with your LGPL library.

So an OCaml library released under LGPL would be almost equivalent to a library
release under GPL. The way around this is with that linking exception.

If your library is under the GPL, or if you are writing an application as
opposed to a library then this doesn't matter as the executable will always be a
derived work and require people to release any source code they link it with.

IANAL, so I may be wrong on this but this is what I understood from the wording
of the linking exception and LGPL.

Best regards,
--Edwin