From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_MUA_MOZILLA autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,6071f84396b8f5aa X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,UTF8 Received: by 10.204.138.79 with SMTP id z15mr273443bkt.8.1318940105613; Tue, 18 Oct 2011 05:15:05 -0700 (PDT) Path: l23ni13528bkv.0!nntp.google.com!news1.google.com!goblin1!goblin.stu.neva.ru!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Jeffrey Creem Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Writing PDF files Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 07:46:10 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: <7h50n8-3ig.ln1@newserver.thecreems.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="QWtZqFBQtiq0FqDjTxs/XQ"; logging-data="13099"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+BQQAqZNfFYAN7Jh8eB2j0xETzD+6YsaA=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20110929 Thunderbird/7.0.1 In-Reply-To: Cancel-Lock: sha1:h1MK1FkHankkng/nayK1KybO1Sc= Xref: news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:18561 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Date: 2011-10-18T07:46:10-04:00 List-Id: On 10/18/2011 6:14 AM, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote: > Le Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:03:38 +0200, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) > a écrit: >> And according to http://plplot.sourceforge.net/ there already is an >> Ada binding (otherwise, this a C story). > Potentially appealing too, is the license, which is *L*GPL. > > However, it is not clear to me if with LGPL, you are required to > dynamically link only or if you also can use static library link without > fears. I just had a look at the Wikipedia entry, which is no more clear > than my mind: > >> Essentially, if it is a "work that uses the library", then it must be >> possible for the software to be linked with a newer version of the >> LGPL-covered program. The most commonly used method for doing so is >> to use "a suitable shared library mechanism for linking". Alternatively, >> a statically linked library is allowed if either source code or >> linkable object files are provided. > What does that mean ? Which sources are you required to provide ? The > one of the library or the one of the application statically linked to it ? > The idea behind the LGPL language there is that it must be technically possible to re-create the program in question and update/replace/bug fix/modify the portion that is covered by LGPL. Dynamic linking does this. Static linking can support this if you provide the required pieces to support it. So, you could for example provide a binary and the source code to everything. If you don't want to do that, you could also provide the .o files for the application that you wish to keep licensed under terms other than the GPL such that one could re-link those .o files with the library (And, provide the scripts, makefile, information required to do the relink). Usually when I explain this, sw people immediately jump to the conclusion that this is silly because version 11.23 of the LGPL covered library may not be API compatible with version 11.24 so clearly this is not providing the user with anything they'd want. The license language is not asking you to warranty that there exists an continuing stream of LGPL library updates that will always link against the .o files of your application, but providing them does allow users at least the freedom to fix bugs in the LGPL portion and create a new application.