OSNews > Thread > "RE: and you thought the GPL was hard to follow" by lemur2

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 1st Jul 2007 10:30 UTC

SWSoft, the company behind Parallels Desktop for Mac, is possibly violating the LGPL license by using LGPL libraries from the WINE project without providing access to the source code. The WINE project first discovered the violation early this June, and after several failed attempts at getting the source code to the libraries, they set up a wiki page to keep track of the ongoing violation. The WINE project wants to resolve the issue "without starting legal action". Thanks to MacWereld for pointing this out [Dutch].

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RE: and you thought the GPL was hard to follow

by lemur2 on Sun 1st Jul 2007 13:01 UTC in reply to "and you thought the GPL was hard to follow"

Member since:
2007-02-17

They just have to give back the changes they made , and not open everything, either that or quit distributing the software.

If they made no changes to Wine source, then Parallels should have no problem publishing the source code they used, since Wine is already public.

If Parallels did make some changes to the Wine source, it shouldn't be too onerous to release the changes they made to Wine source code. It can't be too many.

Under no circumstance do Parallels have to release all their source code ... just the Wine stuff which was under the LGPL is affected here.

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RE[2]: and you thought the GPL was hard to follow

by Dark_Knight on Sun 1st Jul 2007 14:26 in reply to "RE: and you thought the GPL was hard to follow"

Member since:
2005-07-10

Since Parallels is closed source then most likely this will need to be handled through the court system to have an independent review of each projects code. Even though I'm a supporter of the Linux movement I can see the reasoning why a closed source developer would be cautious showing an open source developer their code.

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RE[3]: and you thought the GPL was hard to follow

by lemur2 on Sun 1st Jul 2007 15:03 in reply to "RE[2]: and you thought the GPL was hard to follow"

Member since:
2007-02-17

The code to Parallels itself is closed, and it belongs to Apple, and that code is not the subject of this discussion.

Parallels has linked in some code from the Wine project. It is that Wine code that is under discussion. That code is LGPL code, and as such, anyone redistibuting it is required to release the source code, along with any changes made to the source code, FOR THE PARTS THAT ARE GPL CODE.

There is no question of a "closed source developer ... showing an open source developer their code". The Wine code at issue here is NOT Parallel's code.

Edited 2007-07-01 15:03

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