On 8/16/07, Bayley, Alistair
I could be wrong, but I believe that Brian's intention is indeed to release a commercial/proprietary app, hence it is possibly an issue for him. I'm not sure about having to distribute the code for his app; I thought the point of the LGPL license was to allow proprietary (non-GPL?) apps to link to LGPL libs. Wouldn't he just have to distribute the code for GMP? But then, I understand less about FSF licensing than pretty much everyone else on this list, so I'll shut up now...
As long as GMP isn't modified, it is not even necessary to distribute the source code. It is only necessary to include the license information as part of the "combined work". (Sect. 4 of LGPL). Furthermore you need to make sure, that a user can replace the LGPL component with another version. Dynamic linking is the easiest way to do this. However, conveying object code that can be relinked statically seems to be OK too. I cannot say that I get the definition of "minimal corresponding code" in the LGPL completely. The essence however seems to be that users must be able to replace the LGPL component with another version. I also understand that it is not necessary to include it directly in your binary distribution, as long as you provide a mechanism through which the necessary material can be obtained (e.g. separate download). The idea is that if there is a bug in GMP but the author of the combined work isn't willing or able to provide an updated version of his app that is built with the fixed version, users must be able to create their own version that uses the fixed GMP version. Cheers, /Lars