LGPL and iPhone

[joncle]

Had an "interesting" discussion in the Stackoverflow Python room (bookmarked transcript here)

There's an article compatibility between the iphone and lgpl that has some analysis as well as links to other resources, but it appears there's not really a conclusion except the owner could assert rights, but in the spirit of things most likely wouldn't...

I'm just wondering what the stance is from the author(s) here?

[sigmavirus24]

So there are a few things that are important to note:

• You must make the source of the library itself available upon request (e.g., if someone catches that chardet is LGPL you have to provide them with the source to chardet). You can also make the object files statically linked but I'm not quite certain why anyone would think you must do that.
• We are not the authors of chardet. Chardet was initially created by engineers at Mozilla and they are the ones who are the authors. Mark Pilgrim ported the library and @dan-blanchard, and I are only maintainers of the port to Python. As I understand it, neither @dan-blanchard nor I can do anything. Mozilla would have to.
• The clauses of the GPL are often exaggerated. They present difficulties but they're not as "destructive" as most claim.

[BoonsNaibot]

This article highlights most, if not all, of my concerns. Using kivy's framework, your chardetect module would be used in an iOS application--and iOS explicitly prohibits dynamically-linked libraries. I don't profess to be an expert in...much of anything, let alone the legalese of software licenses; but wouldn't import chardet in a closed-source, proprietary application violate the LPGL license?

If so, would you and @dan-blanchard be against switching licenses--or granting an "exception" (in whatever form it may take) in this case?

[sigmavirus24]

@BoonsNaibot as I pointed out, Chardet was initially created by engineers at Mozilla. Given that, @dan-blanchard and I cannot switch licenses even if we wanted to. Also as the original authors we cannot grant exceptions as I understand it.

Also, as I've already said, as best I understand it, you're using it is not a violation. All you have to do is provide a notice that it was used and a way to retrieve the source. I am not a lawyer though, so you should consult one before publishing any software using chardet.

[BoonsNaibot]

From what i understand, the Charset that was created by Mozilla is licensed under the Mozilla Public License, not (L)GPL. At the end of the day, it would be your code that i would be using. However, if you still assert that there is no conflict, then that's good enough for me, and we could close the issue! :-).

[sigmavirus24]

@BoonsNaibot I will say this once more. Neither @dan-blanchard nor I wrote this code. We cannot give you any guarantees that the original authors will not in fact find a conflict. Consult a lawyer.