Voltage Spike said: > A friend and I have been discussing the LGPL as it might apply to an > embedded product. We desire to link in an LGPL library to some > proprietary code such that we replace the current proprietary protocol > with an open one. It is always best if you have questions on a particular license to ask the author of the license the question. As generally intent is the important part of legal procedings. So knowing the original authors intent can be valuable. :) One thing the Free Software Foundation provides is guidance on Free Software licenses. I suggest you contact them as they are willing to help: If you want help choosing a license, evaluating a license, or have any other questions about licenses, you can email us at . > It would appear that according to provision 6(a), we need only > distribute the source code to the LGPL library and the object file to > the proprietary code (before linking). The other provisions would be > that the license is altered to allow both modification and reverse > engineering of the end product, the copyright notice is distributed with > the project, and a copy of the LGPL is included with the product. Have > I understood the terms properly? I think pretty much sums it up, but IANAL. > Another question: If the embedded product provides no manner of updating > the product (beyond replacing a ROM), would it still be legal to use > LGPL code? It states that our terms must allow for modification, but it > does not specify that it be technically feasible. I don't think this is an issue. You are granting them the rights to reverse engineer and providing them code to modify if they so desire. I do not think a hardware device _limitation_ is an issue. If you were to put restrictions against the hardware it might come into play. I have not dealt with embedded product licensing much or I would be more verbose. I would definitely contact the FSF specifically to get advice. Derek Neighbors GNU Enterprise http://www.gnue.org derek@gnue.org