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0 pointsmort962y ago0 comments

Let's imagine I'm making MortPlayer, a video player for iOS which uses a version of the VLC libraries which are licensed under LGPL 2.1 (since that's what you're focusing on). Let's say I want MortPlayer to be closed source.

In other words, VLC owns the libraries, and I want to license them under the LGPL 2.1.

The LGPL 2.1 says:

    6. As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a "work that
    uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the
    Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided that the
    terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse
    engineering for debugging such modifications.

Okay, so I must distribute MortPlayer under terms which permit modification and reverse engineering. I can do that. Maybe Apple's terms conflict, but let's assume that's not an issue, let's read on.

    You must give prominent notice with each copy of the work that the Library is used
    in it and that the Library and its use are covered by this License. You must supply
    a copy of this License. If the work during execution displays copyright notices, you
    must include the copyright notice for the Library among them, as well as a reference
    directing the user to the copy of this License.

Okay, no problem.

    Also, you must do one of these things:

Oh boy.

    a) Accompany the work with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code
    for the Library including whatever changes were used in the work (which must be
    distributed under Sections 1 and 2 above); and, if the work is an executable linked
    with the Library, with the complete machine-readable "work that uses the Library",
    as object code and/or source code, so that the user can modify the Library and then
    relink to produce a modified executable containing the modified Library. (It is
    understood that the user who changes the contents of definitions files in the
    Library will not necessarily be able to recompile the application to use the
    modified definitions.)

Okay. I can accompany the work (MortPlayer) with the source code for VLC's libraries, no problem. MortPlayer is executed and linked with VLC's libraries, so I need to 'accompany the work with ... the complete machine-readable "work that uses the Library", as object code and/or source code, so that the user can modify the Library and then relink to produce a modified executable containing the modified Library".

I think that's doable with app stores? I can certainly distribute a zip file with the object files for MortPlayer so that the user can link them against their own version of VLC. The user wouldn't be able to then run the recompiled application, on their device, but that's not specified in the terms...

Honestly I'm a bit surprised, I fully expected to find that this section a) included wording which requires the user to be able to run the resulting linked application, which Apple forbids (asterisk), and then go through b) and conclude that iOS doesn't have a "suitable shared library mechanism" due to its restrictions etc. But I'm instead forced to conclude that you're probably right, at least by the letter of the license.

I read the corresponding parts of LGPL 3 as well, and I can't find anything which requires the re-linked application to be immediately executable on the user's machine there either.

I think my conclusion is that LGPL, both 2.1 and 3.0, is fully compatible with app stores so long as you distribute your application as object code which can be linked against the LGPL licensed libraries? I would be very interested to hear from someone with opposing views about why I may be wrong. I, as they say, ANAL.

0 comments

hedora2y ago

Are these new changes with LGPL 2.1? I don’t remember it containing the modification and relinking restrictions in the past. It kind of defeats the purpose of the LGPL IMO.

As an aside, it really bugs me that the GPL morphed into this thing that gives developers the freedom to run privacy violating and user-abusing cloud services, but doesn’t allow manufacturers to ship the same stuff on physical (and perhaps offline) hardware the end users have physical control over.

When the GPL 3 added the anti-TiVo clause, it really should have also added AGPL’s anti-google clauses at the same time.

Anyway, I guess the above restriction means I won’t be using LGPL for stuff I write at work, even though most of what we do gets open sourced anyway.

kmeisthax2y ago

> When the GPL 3 added the anti-TiVo clause, it really should have also added AGPL’s anti-google clauses at the same time.

They tried that, everyone balked. You know how Linus Torvalds rejected GPLv3 for Linux specifically because anti-TiVo[0] would be "changing the deal"? Imagine that times a thousand.

Furthermore, AGPL is only an anti-Google license specifically because Google is as internally afraid of it as Microsoft is of GPL. You can defeat the Affero clause by putting the software behind a proxy, for example. Furthermore, the Affero clause is only appropriate for web applications - ideally ones in dynamic languages that execute from source that remains on disk. Slapping it on all GPL software would be really, really dangerous. I've heard of people using AGPL on Ethernet PHYs - how the fuck do you offer source code to every packet that crosses an Ethernet switch?

If you really want a license clause that would absolutely decimate any corporate freeloading behavior, you want OpenWatcom's anti-private-forks clause[1]. It does everything AGPL tries to do, with fewer legal loopholes. But good luck getting that past RMS. The problem with supra-GPL copylefts is that anything that is legally watertight to a corporation is also going to impinge on a lot of freedoms we enjoy. Remember: the whole point of the GPL is to reject copyright, and that specifically means lots of corporate freeloading, because the whole point of copyright is to stop corporate freeloading.

[0] From what I've heard, the anti-TiVo clause in GPLv3 is actually less strict than the FSF advertised, at least relative to how TiVo used Linux. I can't find the original article I heard this in, though!

[1] Specifically, the OpenWatcom license requires distribution of source code whenever you use a modified version of the software.

freedomben2y ago

I mostly agree with you, with one exception:

> Remember: the whole point of the GPL is to reject copyright, and that specifically means lots of corporate freeloading, because the whole point of copyright is to stop corporate freeloading

I don't think this is true. My understanding (which could be flawed) is that the whole point of the GPL is to weaponize copyright in order to guarantee freedoms, not to reject it (a subtle but important distinction).

Also the whole point of copyright doesn't seem to be to stop corporate freeloading, though that is of course part of it. It's point is to ensure that the original creator has rights to benefit from the work, whether that means getting stolen from by a huge corporation or stolen from by teenagers passing memes over the internet, or adapted by an individual/sole proprietor as part of some larger work, etc. My guess is we probably agree on this part and the debate is probably over semantics (i.e. you might have meant "business in general" by "corporate" rather than specific corporations).

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dingnuts2y ago

>You can defeat the Affero clause by putting the software behind a proxy, for example

Could someone elaborate on this? This is NOT my understanding of the license, and it seems absurd considering e.g. Mastodon is AGPL but the standard install requires a reverse proxy[1]. If using a proxy defeats Affero, why would the Mastodon team do this? Are they stupid?

[1] https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/dist/nginx.co...

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singpolyma32y ago

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t...

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not_the_fda2y ago

[0] The anti-TiVo clause only applies to "User Product" defined in the GPL as a consumer device, i.e. not a device you sell to a business. The idea being business's can fend for themselves. Its perfectly valid to create say a medical device that is sold to hospitals and have it locked down and use LGPL code. The hospital actually wants it locked down.

mort96OP2y ago

Huh? The whole point of the LGPL is to say, "you can use the LGPL'd code in your closed-source product, but the user must be able to replace the LGPL part of your product with their own version". The way to achieve that is to either use some kind of dynamic linking where the user can provide their own .so/.dll/.dylib of the LGPL'd library, or to provide the object files so that the user can statically re-link the application with their own version of the LGPL'd library.

This is different from GPL, since you can't use GPL'd code in your closed-source product at all, not even if you let the user replace the GPL'd portion with their own version.

What purpose of the LGPL is defeated?

hedora2y ago

I thought the purpose of the LGPL was that it could be used for libraries without tainting the stuff the library is linked against with viral GPL restrictions.

Concretely, using gcc with default settings will bring in glibc and compiler intrinsic code snippets which were both LGPL last time I checked. If I use GCC to compile and statically link closed source code that I have a redistribution without modification license for, then I can’t redistribute my binary without violating my license for the closed source code.

Ouch! MUSL + clang it is, I guess. (I value my users’ right to own and operate computers even higher than their right to recompile code, so I’d rather not restrict my lgpl tainted binaries so they can only run in the cloud).

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gorkish2y ago

> What purpose of the LGPL is defeated?

The purpose of /which/ LGPL? And that's the thing. After GPL demonstrated that it had teeth and got some case law underneath it, the "family" of derivatives exploded, each one of them identifying as "open source" but each with their own additions, removals, modifications or other opinions on what "freedoms" they convey (mostly removals).

There are those of us out here who believe that the core purpose of all of these licenses were defeated a long time ago when all of this legal swizzling first began. I personally hate GPLv3, AGPL, LGPLv3, etc. with a fiery burning passion; thank god we were able to see some transformative projects emerge under actually free licenses before everything got ruined.

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naasking2y ago

It should be compatible with app stores. How would the inability to swap out the VLC library be any different from a program that you can't change because it's on a system managed by a sysadmin? Of course you, as a user, can run LGPL programs on mainframes or other third-party managed systems, this was a well known use case when the LGPL was written.

actionfromafar2y ago

It's all about the distribution of copyrighted material. The "user" then is the admin which received the program. The other used without admin, is just using some remote service. (With telnet/ssh. No distribution of copyrighted material is going on there, just input/output from a remote service, like a web site running LGPL code.)

actionfromafar2y ago

This is where things start being human and not only technocratic. If I, the user, have (only) an iOS device - how can I do this re-linking? I can't. I must get permission from (Apple Developer Account), buy a Mac, and re-sign binary blobs.

"The user wouldn't be able to then run the recompiled application, on their device" - I think that's where we get into the spirit of the license. It's pretty clear the license was not written to mean "here's some bytes, we write a lot about the freedom of the user" all for it to end with "can't run it though".

I can't understand someone carefully reading the LGPL license and then thinking, "great fit for a locked down app store distribution!"

I rather think that because LGPL historically saw a lot of use for platforms where this is not a problem, like Windows, where all this relinking is pretty doable, people just assume its fine on iOS.

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0 pointsmort962y ago0 comments

In other words, VLC owns the libraries, and I want to license them under the LGPL 2.1.

The LGPL 2.1 says:

    6. As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a "work that
    uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the
    Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided that the
    terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse
    engineering for debugging such modifications.

Okay, so I must distribute MortPlayer under terms which permit modification and reverse engineering. I can do that. Maybe Apple's terms conflict, but let's assume that's not an issue, let's read on.

    You must give prominent notice with each copy of the work that the Library is used
    in it and that the Library and its use are covered by this License. You must supply
    a copy of this License. If the work during execution displays copyright notices, you
    must include the copyright notice for the Library among them, as well as a reference
    directing the user to the copy of this License.

Okay, no problem.

    Also, you must do one of these things:

Oh boy.

    a) Accompany the work with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code
    for the Library including whatever changes were used in the work (which must be
    distributed under Sections 1 and 2 above); and, if the work is an executable linked
    with the Library, with the complete machine-readable "work that uses the Library",
    as object code and/or source code, so that the user can modify the Library and then
    relink to produce a modified executable containing the modified Library. (It is
    understood that the user who changes the contents of definitions files in the
    Library will not necessarily be able to recompile the application to use the
    modified definitions.)

I read the corresponding parts of LGPL 3 as well, and I can't find anything which requires the re-linked application to be immediately executable on the user's machine there either.

0 comments

hedora2y ago

Are these new changes with LGPL 2.1? I don’t remember it containing the modification and relinking restrictions in the past. It kind of defeats the purpose of the LGPL IMO.

When the GPL 3 added the anti-TiVo clause, it really should have also added AGPL’s anti-google clauses at the same time.

Anyway, I guess the above restriction means I won’t be using LGPL for stuff I write at work, even though most of what we do gets open sourced anyway.

kmeisthax2y ago

> When the GPL 3 added the anti-TiVo clause, it really should have also added AGPL’s anti-google clauses at the same time.

They tried that, everyone balked. You know how Linus Torvalds rejected GPLv3 for Linux specifically because anti-TiVo[0] would be "changing the deal"? Imagine that times a thousand.

[1] Specifically, the OpenWatcom license requires distribution of source code whenever you use a modified version of the software.

freedomben2y ago

I mostly agree with you, with one exception:

> Remember: the whole point of the GPL is to reject copyright, and that specifically means lots of corporate freeloading, because the whole point of copyright is to stop corporate freeloading

1 more reply

dingnuts2y ago

>You can defeat the Affero clause by putting the software behind a proxy, for example

[1] https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/dist/nginx.co...

2 more replies

singpolyma32y ago

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t...

1 more reply

not_the_fda2y ago

mort96OP2y ago

This is different from GPL, since you can't use GPL'd code in your closed-source product at all, not even if you let the user replace the GPL'd portion with their own version.

What purpose of the LGPL is defeated?

hedora2y ago

I thought the purpose of the LGPL was that it could be used for libraries without tainting the stuff the library is linked against with viral GPL restrictions.

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gorkish2y ago

> What purpose of the LGPL is defeated?

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naasking2y ago

actionfromafar2y ago

I can't understand someone carefully reading the LGPL license and then thinking, "great fit for a locked down app store distribution!"

I rather think that because LGPL historically saw a lot of use for platforms where this is not a problem, like Windows, where all this relinking is pretty doable, people just assume its fine on iOS.

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