26 Sep
2012
26 Sep
'12
8:12 p.m.
"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."
I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that this statement
implicates that the library license is more restricted and
that things you are allowed to do under the library license
are still allowed under the general license.
Clearly you're not. It's pretty much exactly the opposite actually. LGPL is _LESS_ restrictive and among those additional
freedom, you can
relicense it under GPL.
Yes, this is what Lief suggested.
This means you
are free to use the rtlsdr dll available
at osmocom but you can not distribute an executable in
which the library is linked in.
??? How exactly did you go from taking a software distributed using
GPL (rtl-sdr and librtlsdr) and just apply LGPL clauses to it ???
As said above you can't do that at all. If you link to librtlsdr.so, you _have_ to be a GPL
compatible license
and that's it. That's how GPL works.
If I understand correctly, Leif was suggesting a workaround. Instead of
distributing something that violates the license, you could distribute
something in two halves (each in compliance), along with instructions on how
to link them together. Once linked they can no longer be distributed, but
because you were distributing them separately you wouldn't be violating any
licenses.
I'm not sure what the legal implications of this are. On the one hand what
you're distributing complies with the license, but then by providing
instructions on how to link them together there is clear intent to bypass the
restrictions imposed by the licenses. I guess this is where advice from the
SFLC comes in.
Cheers,
Adam.