> The main difference between these two licenses is the LGPL license can be freely modified by anyone, and doesn't require the modifications (i.e. modified sour

> The main difference between these two licenses is the LGPL license can be freely modified by anyone, and doesn't require the modifications (i.e. modified source code) to be re-distributed. It's perfectly legal to only distribute the binaries from your changes, and never share your source code. Why is this dangerous? Because it allows proprietary versions of your software to be released, and thus you no longer have a "free" software product. > The main selling point of GPL (over other licenses) is your code can be freely modified by anyone, and even redistributed by anyone, but any public release of any version of your software (by anyone) must make the source code available. It's also perfectly fine for someone to sell a version of a GPL software product, however they must make the source code available, and they must not charge extra for the source code. This is just straight up not true. As a commenter on the original site put it: > I don't believe this to be accurate. Here's an example case that I think correctly shows the difference between these two licenses: > Suppose someone writes a shared code library, say to do XML parsing or something. Then suppose I write a program that makes use of this library. > If the original library was licensed with LGPL, my obligations I are pretty limited. If I make code changes to the library itself, I have to release that code back under the LGPL license, but my main application can be licensed however I see fit. > In contrast, if the library was released under the GPL, my entire application written using that library is forced to be licensed also as GPL. (This is why the GPL is often considered to be "viral".) Very little of this article is accurate. For a basic understanding, check out, e.g., https://choosealicense.com/ https://choosealicense.com/.