Could ROWLEX be used as .DLL files in commercial projects (because of some non-LGPL components)? [closed]

Question

As people asked in How can ROWLEX be licensed under L-GPL while it uses SemWeb which is GPL? there is no definition if ROWLEX could be used as a library freely in commercial projects. How free is to use it in such projects? Is it possible to contribute to this project and simultaneously use it freely in commercial sector?

Answer 1

You can use ROWLEX in commercial projects AND you can contribute to it, too. If you decide to change ROWLEX and you bind it to your commercially distributed product, L-GPL forces you to publish the modifications.

If you decide to do both (contributing to ROWLEX and using the modified ROWLEX in a commercial product), I recommend you to strictly separate the two activities to avoid having your commercial product impacted by the L-GPL licensing issues. Do not just reuse the source code of ROWLEX in your commercial app, but keep ROWLEX (modified or unmodified) as a separately compiled dll. That independent dll can be linked to your commercial app without licensing penalties.

If you are interested in contributing, please send us a mail to admin at rowlex.net.

Answer 2

I don't know about ROWLEX specifically but generally yes, DLL-linked LGPL libraries can freely be used in any projects, including commercial projects, without the copyleft leaking to your code.

Of course, if you modify the library itself, then these modifications are subject to copyleft.