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You don’t have to make your code LGPL even if you statically link, though that is a common misunderstanding (sometimes a promoted misunderstanding). https://ww
by michaelsbradley 3y ago
You don’t have to make your code LGPL even if you statically link, though that is a common misunderstanding (sometimes a promoted misunderstanding).
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LGPLStaticVsDynamic https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LGPLStaticVsDynami...
If you statically link against an LGPLed library, you must also provide your application in an object (not necessarily source) format, so that a user has the opportunity to modify the library and relink the application.
- msie 3y agoCool
- foresto 3y agoDo any well-known commercial projects do this?
- tgma 3y agoDoes Safari somehow count (can link against WebKit)
- mananaysiempre 3y agoApparently distributing object files for relinking on incompatible Unices used to be a fairly common practice in the early 90s[1], although I don’t know if it was ever done for LGPL compliance. [1] https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/linux123.html https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/linux123.html
- jcelerier 3y agoyes, some iOS apps do this for instance, including one by Cisco
- musicale 3y agoThat's interesting. I expect for most common purposes LGPL and dynamic linking are probably fine, but it's good that there is a workaround for static linking. Apple's mergeable libraries are basically dynamic libraries, but I expect on Apple platforms you'd have to provide the library source anyway since it won't be included in the OS. Of course I've never figured out how to download the LGPL source code from an iOS app - presumably there is a way other than just searching for it via google or github?