Re: Confused about LGPL terms - can you help?

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   If I understand the spirit of LGPL correctly (as laid out in its
   preamble), its aim is to facilitate the use of open-source
   libraries even in commercial products, without loosing its
   open-source property.

Both the GPL and LGPL can be used with commercial productes.  Not
being able to charge a fee for distribution of a work will infact make
the license a non-free software license.

The point of the Lesser GPL is to allow libraries that are licensed
under the LGPL to allow non-free programs to use them.

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   Can I use LAME in my commercial program?

   Yes, you can, under the restrictions of the LGPL.  The easiest way
   to do this is to:

Even under the restriction of the GPL (since the LGPL allows you to
opt the GPL, section 3), or any free software license.

   1. Link to LAME as separate library (libmp3lame.a on unix or
      lame_enc.dll on windows)

You can link any program, even non-free ones to LAME if it is under
the LGPL.

   2. Fully acknowledge that you are using LAME, and give a link to
      our web site, www.mp3dev.org

   3. If you make modifications to LAME, you *must* release these
      these modifications back to the LAME project, under the LGPL.

This is more or less correct.

   That is, if:

   1. I link to the library *dynamically* and

   2. I *do not modify* the library in any way and

   3. I fully acknowledge that I am using that library

   4. I include the library (in a DLL form) in the installation
      package (as a separate file), while offering the source code to
      that library (only), but not offering the source code to my own
      program (which calls the library)

   Do I comply with the LGPL license?

Yes.