Caveat Emptor: I'm not a lawyer, but I read these licenses quite carefully. If you make any commercial decisions, you should contact a lawyer. Period. Otherwise, you will expose yourself to significant legal risk.
First, let's look at your specific questions.
Question: What exactly is the restriction on linking the GPL-ed product with the EPL library and the LGPL library? Is the explicit permission of the LGPL copyright holder permitted, as it would be with the GPL, or is it allowed?
Answer: Decomposition follows.
- Linking LGPL 2 and 3 code with EPL 1.0 is probably good.
- Link: LGPL 2, Section 5 : A program that does not contain any derivative of any part of the Library, but is designed to work with the Library, being compiled or linked to it, is called "work that uses the library."
- Link: LGPL 3, Section 4 : You can transfer the Combined Work in accordance with the conditions you have chosen, which together effectively do not limit the modification of parts of the Library contained in the combined work ...
- Linking the LGPL code 2 and 3 with the GPL code 2 and 3 is probably ok. See Diagram @ 0A0D to see which combinations are allowed.
- Linking GPL codes 2 and 3 with EPL 1.0 is not allowed .
- Regarding the explicit permission of the copyright holder: you can do whatever you want if you get permission from all copyright owners. Given the complexity of this legally and logically, it should be considered almost impossible.
- Example: you could (with heroic efforts) try to obtain (with money?) Permission from all Linux kernel participants to provide you with a license for BSD code for code that you could modify and release as free (commercial) software. Again, as noted earlier, it is possible, but unrealistic.
Question: Was the exception provided by the EPL copyright holder sufficient? This exception was considered safe for Trolltech (now part of Nokia) when it was used to license the Qt library using its own public Qt license, which is incompatible with the GPL; and the KDE project, whose libraries are linked to Qt and released under the LGPL, while KDE applications are usually released under the GPL. The FSF’s objection is due to a “weak piggy bank” and “choice of law” - the former seems unreasonable if the EPL owner provides an exception, but which exception provided by the EPL copyright owner will satisfy the “choice disclaimer?”
Answer: Decomposition follows.
- Was the exception provided by the EPL copyright holder sufficient?
- As noted above, it is possible, but extremely unrealistic, that the copyright holders of EPL 1.0 can provide such an exception.
- As for Trolltech and multidisciplinary licensing, derivatives usually have the ability to choose which license to apply. So, in the case of Trolltech / QPL / GPL, forget about QPL and just use the GPL.
- As for KDE / LGPL, I am not familiar with their licensing strategy and cannot comment. However, of course, they have lawyers. AFAIK: KDE is a nonprofit nonprofit organization in Germany and probably received some legal advice on these issues. Even if not, KDE is old enough that, if not respected, the copyright owner would undoubtedly object. More details here .
Finally, I also encounter a similar problem as I try to combine Java code with Eclipse and OpenJDK.
My reading of the licenses suggests that combining these works is explicitly permitted because Eclipse uses the term derivative in its GPL 2 and 3 incompatibility statement. In addition, the Classpath Exception states that a link to this library does not create a derivative work.
kevinarpe
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