Dependency on LGPL Licensed DocsByReflection

[harindaka]

@faniereynders I noticed that WebApiProxy despite being distributed under the MIT license statically links the LGPL licensed DocsByReflection library. This technically means that you cannot distribute all of your work under MIT. Since LGPL is not commercial friendly (unless dynamically linked), this will be a major restriction on WebApiProxy's adoption by commercial closed source software.

@giacomelli seems to be the creator of DocsByReflection (https://github.com/giacomelli/DocsByReflection). Can you shed some light as well. I have personally had bad experiences with our legal team whenever the LGPL was involved (statically linked) in the past.

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/127749/does-the-mit-open-source-license-implies-work-derivatives-to-be-made-public-und

Also since DocsByReflection is not signed (strong named) this prevents WebApiProxy assemblies from being signed as well. So GAC cannot be used to host them. It would be better to publish signed assemblies via nuget as well so that strong named projects are able to reference WebApiProxy too.

[giacomelli]

Well, I had not realized this :(

I can change DocsByReflection to use a dual-license (LGPL and MIT). Do you think it will be enough?

[faniereynders]

@harindaka I also did not notice this :)

@giacomelli how can we resolve this? I would obviously still want to use this library, but don't want to get into any trouble legal wise. I'm not a lawyer myself :)

[faniereynders]

I think we better call Saul :)

[giacomelli]

@harindaka I had update DocsByReflection nuget package to a signed version and update the license section https://github.com/giacomelli/docsbyreflection#license (now MIT is supported).

@faniereynders please, run update-package DocsByReflection to get the signed version.

[harindaka]

@giacomelli that's great news. @faniereynders will try to create a PR with a signed version of WP as well tomorrow (midnight here in Sri Lanka :) . Went through your comments on my previous PR. Will make ammends.

[mawt]

While the GPL doesn't allow you to link across a source/object interface without releasing the code under the same licence, the LGPL does: it was created to specifically allow this.

In other words a project, like this, that uses LGPL licensed code as a library doesn't have to release source under the GPL.

[harindaka]

You may be right but the fact is LGPL is frowned upon by commercial s/w
company legal teams while MIT or BSD are not. I'm no lawyer but as a
developer I would feel more comfortable under a more permissive license
than the LGPL. i.e. MIT, BSD etc.
On Mar 25, 2015 4:58 PM, "mawt" notifications@github.com wrote:

While the GPL doesn't allow you to link across a source/object interface
without releasing the code under the same licence, the LGPL does: it was
created to specifically allow this.

In other words a project, like this, that uses LGPL licensed code as a
library doesn't have to release source under the GPL.

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[faniereynders]

@harindaka sorry for taking so long. Just to confirm, according to https://github.com/giacomelli/docsbyreflection#license the signed version is 1.0.9 right?

[faniereynders]

This has been addressed in #75.

Happy days! 🎈