Static linking considered harmful

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net> said:
> > > Are you sure? glibc is not GPL, it's LGPL. and how would a vendor in
> > > 2006 be able to ensure that his binaries can relinked with glibc from
> > > 2010?
> > 
> > Did you read what I wrote?  I said LGPL, not GPL.
> 
> Sorry, indeed you did.
> 
> > As for how the vendor can ensure anything, that is the vendor's
> > problem.
> 
> No, not legally. If any contract has unfulfillable clauses these get
> dropped.

The vendor doesn't have to make something that will work with random
glibcs; just modified versions of the same glibc they used (as long as
the modified version is interface-compatible).

> > The LGPL requires any work statically linked to the library be
> > distributed with (or with an offer for) the source and/or object code so
> > that the end-user can modify the library and relink the work.
> 
> Can you quote that in the license, because I think you're quoting the
> GPL, not the LGPL.

Go read it yourself; section 6a in /usr/share/doc/glibc-2*/COPYING.LIB
(it is a little long to quote).

> > Any vendor distributing a binary statically linked to glibc (or any
> > other LGPL library) without including source and/or object code (or an
> > offer to get source and/or object code) is violating the license.
> 
> I think that's exactly the difference between GPL and LGPL ...

No, the difference is that the vendor can include only object code;
source code is not required.  The GPL makes no mention of linking
(static or dynamic).

I really suggest you read the license; you have a copy (or maybe more
than one) on your system.  It is pretty straight forward.
-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.