Question

Question

[John Vassiliades]

Hi, my name is John V. and I am seeking to use libelf.

I notice from the Elfutils web page at sourceware.org/elfutils under the section entitled “License” that “The libraries and backends are dual GPLv2+/LGPLv3+.”

Does this mean that I can pick and choose to use libelf under either the GPLv2+ or under LGPLv3+ and if so, how do I indicate which license I have chosen to use?

I look forward to your reply.

Thank you. John





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Re: Question

[Frank Ch. Eigler]

Hi -

> Hi, my name is John V. and I am seeking to use libelf.

Welcome.

> I notice from the Elfutils web page at sourceware.org/elfutils under
> the section entitled “License” that “The libraries and backends are
> dual GPLv2+/LGPLv3+.”

Yes.

> Does this mean that I can pick and choose to use libelf under either
> the GPLv2+ or under LGPLv3+ and if so, how do I indicate which
> license I have chosen to use?

The canonical answer is ... "ask your own lawyer".

AIUI, the informal answer is: you choose.  You don't have to make a
statement about what you're doing.  Sometimes people communicate it by
removing one or the other license permission in a derived work.  Or if
e.g. an end user asks you for source code for a combined work, you
need to do it under the rules for one or both.

- FChE

Re: Question

[Mark Wielaard]

On Fri, 2021-04-30 at 13:06 -0400, Frank Ch. Eigler via Elfutils-devel wrote:
> AIUI, the informal answer is: you choose.  You don't have to make a
> statement about what you're doing.  Sometimes people communicate it by
> removing one or the other license permission in a derived work.  Or if
> e.g. an end user asks you for source code for a combined work, you
> need to do it under the rules for one or both.

Yes, you don't actually have to choose, the simplest is to just
redistribute under both, the actual license text says:

   This file is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
   it under the terms of either

     * the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free
       Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at
       your option) any later version

   or

     * the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
       Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
       your option) any later version

   or both in parallel, as here.

Cheers,

Mark