Re: License Question

[Chris Frey]

On Tue, Nov 08, 2005 at 07:11:23PM -0500, Hardy, Allan wrote:
> Where the description page says "Since MySQL++ is licensed under the
> LGPL, you cannot link it statically to closed-source programs"
>  
> My understanding is just the opposite. 
> That one can link to LGPL programs without the copyleft, GPL licensing,
> issues.  
> So closed source programs can use LGPL, that's like the whole reason for
> GPL.

I'm not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice.

You might be interested in a post I made a while back:

	http://lists.mysql.com/plusplus/4675

Remember though, that while mysql++ is licensed under LGPL, it is based
on the mysql C API, and recent versions of that are licensed under
the GPL.  So you're still stuck, when it comes to closed source programs.

I'm not a legal expert when it comes to layering LGPL on top of GPL,
but it seems a fuzzy area to me, and would side on the GPL for safety.

If you are writing closed source applications, use Postgresql and its C++
library: libpqxx.  Both are licensed under a BSD-style license.

- Chris