Question

Lets say that I am writing a program that supports plugins and I write one plugin that has a reference to a assembly(.net) that is licensed under LGPL, must I now make the whole project open source and under LGPL?

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Solution

Consulting a lawyer is the only way to get complete, accurate advice of this nature.

That being said, you should be fine, provided you leave the LGPL code in the indepdendant, .NET assembly. If you use the code directly within your project, you may run into other issues, but as long as the .NET assembly is left as-is, and just used by your project, you shouldn't have to open up your code (although you do need to follow the other restrictions of LGPL - mainly distributing the appropriate license files, providing access to the code for the assembly, and using proper attribution).

OTHER TIPS

The main difference between the LGPL and the GPL is that the LGPL does not impose any licensing requirements between modules that can be interchanged by the end user.

So as long as the end user can substitute a different but compatible version of the third party assembly, and as long as you obey the other requirements of the LGPL (like giving appropriate attribution if you're distributing that third party assembly) you can license your stuff however you like.

That depends on the nature of the reference. If "having a reference" is similar to "linking a library", you are not forced to license your software under the LGPL. That is where the LGPL and the GPL differ.

Sorry this thread is very old. But still couldn't find it very clear. So here is my answere

When a library or framework is LGPL , you are free to use the libraries in your commercial project (Yes. you can sell it). You don't need to make your code opensource.

You have to make the code opensource only if: 1. you change the code of library/framework. or 2. You link the libraries statically. (If you link dynamically there is no need to worry about. In windows you can use .dll files to link dynamically)

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