LGPL Version Exclusivity (Was: Releasing software under both LGPL 2.1 & 3 - A good idea?)

[colin davidson]

I doubt very much that the EFF/GNU people are telling you that the copyright
holder cannot relicense a product. Commercial developers do this all the
time (Qt is available under the GPL, but if you don't want to be forced to
publish your code, you can purchase a closed license from Trolltech instead,
for example).

The problem with releasing under both LGPL v2.1 and v3 is that although most
OSS developers would respect that and release any patches under both, there
is absolutely nothing legal constrining them to do so. They would be
compliant so long as they publish under either one of them. Thus there is no
way for you to dual license a product and ensure that any patches will be
mutually compatible. If this is an issue, choose one and stick with it. If
not, do whatever you feel like. *

Cheers, Colin

*Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this should not be contrued as legal
advice.

On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 3:10 PM, Scott Elcomb <psema4-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 11:50 AM, colin davidson
> <colinpdavidson-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > First off, to release under any license (or at least, to do so legally),
> you
> > must be the copyright holder. As copyright holder you may release under
> as
> > many licenses as you choose, unless or until you enter into a legally
> > binding agreement with someone else not to. In other words, if you want
> to
> > do an LGPLv2.1 release and then a seperate LGPLv3 release, noone in the
> > world can legally prevent you.
>
> I would assume the same, however I'm likely to listen closely to what
> the EFF / GNU people have to say.
>
> > However, if one person releases a patch under v2.1 and another releases a
> > different patch under v3, you may never be able to (legally) combine
> them.
> > For that reason, you need to seriously consider if you actually want your
> > code running around out there under 2 different (and for all that they
> have
> > the same name, incompatible) licenses.
>
> Agreed.  Another reason for offering both licenses directly from the
> project site - everyone's on the same page.
>
> --
>   Scott Elcomb
>  http://www.psema4.com/
> --
> The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
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