License question

[Yuriy]

Hi,

I might be making a configuration module for wine for KDE System Settings
based on winecfg as a SoC project for Kubuntu, but I just realized that wine
is LGPL and my project would have to be GPL, so I need to know how to
reconcile that.  Any input ASAP would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Yuriy

P.S. If I get to do this project, I hope to help work on wine this summer,
so hopefully I will be working with you wine devs more later.

[Joseph Garvin]

Yuriy wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I might be making a configuration module for wine for KDE System
> Settings based on winecfg as a SoC project for Kubuntu, but I just
> realized that wine is LGPL and my project would have to be GPL, so I
> need to know how to reconcile that.  Any input ASAP would be greatly
> appreciated.

I'm not a wine hacker, so I can't speak for them, but I don't see why
that should matter. If you write a standalone app for editing the text
files that wine produces (winecfg just modifies .reg files, which are
just text). If you plan to use code from winecfg, only then would it
become an issue. And I don't see why you'd really want/need to. The
brunt of your work should just be finding out what registry keys it sets
and then writing your own code to do the same thing -- something that
should be mostly trivial and could just as easily be figured out from
running winecfg a few times and running diff as it could be from looking
at winecfg's source. Infact, the former is probably easier.

[Brian Vincent]

On 5/22/06, Yuriy  wrote:
> I might be making a configuration module for wine for KDE System Settings
> based on winecfg as a SoC project for Kubuntu, but I just realized that wine
> is LGPL and my project would have to be GPL, so I need to know how to
> reconcile that.  Any input ASAP would be greatly appreciated.

All the configuration options you want to change are located in Wine's
registry with the exception of drive management which is done directly
within the filesystem.

Two options - edit Wine's .reg files directly (not recommended) or
create a Winelib-style app to access Wine's API's for modifying the
registry.  Either way, I don't see a problem with the app being GPL.

-Brian

[Kai Blin]

* Yuriy  [22/05/06, 15:58:28]:
> I might be making a configuration module for wine for KDE System Settings
> based on winecfg as a SoC project for Kubuntu, but I just realized that wine
> is LGPL and my project would have to be GPL, so I need to know how to
> reconcile that.  Any input ASAP would be greatly appreciated.

Actually going that way is not really problematic. Linking to LGPL code
from GPL code is fine. The other way around would be tricky, but you're
not doing that.

Good luck on the project.

Cheers,
Kai

[Aneurin Price]

Kai Blin wrote:
> Actually going that way is not really problematic. Linking to LGPL code
> from GPL code is fine.

To expand upon that, I'd like to quote a passage from the text of the LGPL:

"3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public 
License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do 
this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that 
they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2, 
instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the 
ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify 
that version instead if you wish.) Do not make any other change in these 
notices."

So basically, if you're trying to derive GPL software from LGPL 
software, the official word appears to be 'feel free'. The only problem 
is that you can't contribute *directly* back, as the conversion from GPL 
back to LGPL is impossible - though you could dual-license your code, 
and still comply with the existing license.
Hope that helps :P.
Aneurin Price