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EPL (Eclipse Public License), GPL (GNU Public License)/LGPL (Lesser GPL) and license exceptions? [closed]

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Can EPL license be used commercially?

Using EPL-Licensed Code The Eclipse Public License allows users of the licensed code to: Use the code commercially: The EPL imposes no conditions on using the code in software that's sold commercially except for the aforementioned requirement to extend legal protections to EPL contributors.

Is Eclipse Public License free?

The Eclipse Public License (EPL) is a free and open source software license most notably used for the Eclipse IDE and other projects by the Eclipse Foundation. It replaces the Common Public License (CPL) and removes certain terms relating to litigations related to patents.

What is the difference between GPL and LGPL licenses?

In brief: GPL is mostly for programs while LGPL is limited to software libraries. Whenever changes are made under GPL license, source codes are required and changes must also be licensed under GPL, while LGPL may allow non-GPL programs to link to libraries but must still provide source codes.

Is GNU Lesser General Public License free?

LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License) is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation.


The Free Software Foundation considers EPL and GPL to be incompatible. Based on my reading of their reasoning, it would seem that the LGPL would be similarly affected -- IANAL, please correct me if that reading is incorrect. Now, there is a guide for the copyright holder of the GPL-ed code to provide exceptions allowing for the code to be linked against incompatible libraries, but it'd still preclude linking to GPL-ed code from others (if the code is already linked against an EPL library), and the situation with linking a GPL-ed program against an EPL and another LGPL library seems unclear.

I'd like to know the answer to several questions:

  1. What exactly is the restriction against linking a GPL-ed product against both an EPL library and an LGPL library? Is it not allowed without the LGPL copyright holder's explicit permission, as it would be with GPL, or is it allowed?
  2. Would an exception granted by the EPL copyright holder be sufficient? Such an exception was considered safe by Trolltech (now part of Nokia), when it used to license the Qt library using its own Qt Public License which is GPL-incompatible; and by the KDE project, whose libraries link against Qt and are released under the LGPL, while KDE apps are generally released under the GPL. The FSF's objection is due to "weak copyleft" and "choice of law clause" -- the former seems unobjectionable, if the EPL license holder grants an exception, but what sort of exception granted by the EPL copyright holder would satisfy the "choice of law clause" objection?