Static linking considered harmful

[Benny Amorsen]

>>>>> "PD" == Patrice Dumas <pertusus at free.fr> writes:

PD> Not sure that bundling the .so is better in this regard. I am not
PD> sure that it is legal to bundle LGPL covered .so and a proprietary
PD> app in the same tarball.

It is. The requirement for the LGPL is that you have to be able to
relink the proprietary application with new libraries, and that
method fulfills the requirement.

PD> It is possible to do 2 tarballs, one with apps with LGPL source
PD> compatible license, the other with non LGPL compatible license,
PD> and the user just has to unpack them in the same directory.

The Lesser GPL seems to be even more misunderstood than the GPL. To
get around the full GPL you could try the method you describe here --
it's called "user does the link", and its legality is debated (the FSF
says that it's illegal).

Remember that in all cases, if you ship something under a LGPL or GPL
license as object code, you have to ship either the source or a
written offer to provide the source. If Fedora makes it easy to create
bundles of libraries and applications, it should make sure that the
source code of LGPL or GPL libraries is always included in such
bundles.


/Benny