GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 674960
LGPL and iOS
Last modified: 2012-04-30 08:14:51 UTC
What is GStreamer's official stance regarding LGPL on iOS? Are we allowed to use GStreamer in the Apple App Store so long as we provide all object code necessary to relink the application against a replacement library? I ask because at the time of this writing the legality of LGPL on iOS is under dispute and is being decided on a per-project basis (with the authors' permission): http://loufranco.com/blog/files/lgpl-and-the-iphone.html
(Note that I'm not part of the gstreamer team.) I don't think that this is something to be discussed in a bugtracker, and I don't think that any gstreamer developer is a lawyer and will answer it here just to be quoted afterwards. So in short: Ask your lawyer? :)
Yes, each user could ask their own lawyer and they'd be richer for it (the lawyers that is). A much productive solution is to get an official response from the GStreamer authors. I've seen other library authors post their official stance in a FAQ, thereby putting this issue to rest. So I guess what I'm asking the authors to do is: Either officially state you allow/disallow the use of GStreamer on iOS (due to section 10) or officially state that you are unwilling to make a declaration on this matter (which practically speaking means that people will do it until someone gets sued -- which again, rarely ever happens). The main reason I opened this up on the bug-tracker instead of the mailing list is that I don't want the post to simply go ignored (as has been the case with other open-source projects). I am willing to move this conversation to the mailing list so long as we get some sort of formal resolution on the matter.
The GStreamer authors are lots of people and companies. There is no person who can speak for all of us for legal matters. You can ask each one individually, but that would be a huge amount of work. You should probably really talk to a lawyer if you want legal advice. I guess, the closest you can get is ask the FSF (who wrote the license) what their opinion is.
(Please don't tell people to "consult a lawyer" when they're asking serious questions about license compliance or ambiguities.) The nearest analogue to the iPhone deployment case is back in the day when you had to pay for a C compiler to compile anything for your UNIX system. So if a user received a program that was statically linked to an LGPL library, plus the object files and build scripts to construct a working binary, they would still need to pay someone in order to do that. And clearly, that was allowed. The reason for this is obvious: the user was not paying to modify *that program*, rather they were paying to do any sort of compiling at all. Same is true for the Apple dev tools. And along the same lines, you can jailbreak your phone and use standard open tools to build and deploy on a jailbroken iphone, not too different from installing the GNU system on SunOS in 1989. Unfortunately, Apple has chosen to return us to the bad old days of static linking and paying for compilers/dev tools. Long term, I think the best idea is to gather together some like-minded iphone developers and create tools that make it easy to build and deploy with LGPL libraries, especially tools to promote license compliance. The first "tool" to write would be a document on how to comply with the LGPL in an iphone app. (Leaving as notabug, since I consider this resolved.)
David, I really appreciate the straight-forward manner in which you answered the question. It's a welcome change from the replies I got elsewhere :) Thank you!