License issues

[Jeremy Allison]

Alex Larsson wrote:
> 
> There are (in my mind) two kinds of possibilities for violation here:
> a) an app might use the gnome-vfs api to access files in general,
> which suddenly means that the app also can read files from smb
> shares.
> b) An app depends on the existence of the smb module for it's core
> functionality.
> 
> I would personally see the first case as ok since it just uses a
> public LGPL API in a general way, but the second I think is a
> violation of the license. But if the app and the library are
> distributed separately, who violates the license? The user? But the
> GPL only covers distribution, not usage.

I think the first case is ok, as it's the user that's doing the
aggregation. A proprietary app that depended upon libsmb.so for
it's functionality would probably not be ok (IMHO).

> What does the samba team think about this? The ones that own the
> copyright to the code are the ones that decide whether to pursue any
> violators in court.
> 
> Is there any possibility of re-licensing the smb client parts of samba
> under the LGPL?

Doubtful. Too many contributors to change the license.

Jeremy.

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