[cairo] Re: License for cairo changed to LGPL

[Bill Spitzak]

On Wednesday 04 August 2004 06:31 pm, James Henstridge wrote:

> If the user makes a change to the library that breaks its ABI, then that
> is the user's problem.  This is mentioned in section 6 (a):
>
>     (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.)
>
> Or do you interpret this differently?

No you are right, it sounds like they avoided this problem.

I think the main objection to the LGPL is that it requires the library to be 
a shared library. Technically this is bad as it tends to freeze the library 
API, it also makes a new library unpopular as it has to be "installed" before 
programs using it work, while static-linked libraries work instantly.

Certainly there is a lot of precedence for allowing static linking, as people 
have found a dozen or so versions of these "exception clauses" so far.