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Comment by DannyBee | Hacker News Reader

LGPL (let's stick with version 2.1 for now) gives you a set of options for a "work that uses the library".

Those options are:

1. Give out source to the library, and either source or object code to the work that uses the library (so that the work can be relinked)

2. Use shared linking and build the work into a .so that would work if the user replaced it (There is a point of contention in LGPL 2.1 as to whether you need to make it possible for the user to replace the .so. It's clear what the spirit is, but the actual wording does not require it)

3. Include a written offer for the stuff in #1.

4. Offer source from #1 through the same place that offers binaries.

5. Verify that the user already has the source, or that you already sent it to the user.

If the app store requires static linking, that rules out #2.

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From section 6 of LGPL 2.1: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html

""" For an executable, the required form of the "work that uses the Library" must include any data and utility programs needed for reproducing the executable from it. However, as a special exception, the materials to be distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

It may happen that this requirement contradicts the license restrictions of other proprietary libraries that do not normally accompany the operating system. Such a contradiction means you cannot use both them and the Library together in an executable that you distribute. """

I believe this makes #1 insufficient, (and by reference, #3, #4, #5) - as that requires apple to also distribute the material needed to sign the executable for your specific phone (as an end user) if they give you the executable signed for your specific phone.

Do you have reason to believe otherwise?

Yes, I do. It's pretty evenly divided as to whether lawyers believe this requires giving away signing keys. It's certainly not a simply cut and dry issue like you present it here.

You may want to get into rehashing that discussion, but i've already had that discussion more than once during GPLv3 and LGPLv3 drafting, and it was enough fun there :)

I also am firmly in one of those camps of open source lawyers, and so it wouldn't be appropriate for me to try to reproduce the arguments of the other side, but, at the same time, nothing is ever as black and white as most folks like to think, and I would be stupid to pretend they didn't have a reasonable argument.

In any case, this is why GPLv3 and LGPLv3 is explicit on this point.

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