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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: June 29th, 2024

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  • Using a GPL library will require you to re-license your entire project as GPL, regardless of whether you made a change or not.

    LGPL is a bit better, because it allows you to dynamically link the library. But you’re required to provide a copy of source for the library, and any users must be able to swap the built library with their own copy.

    Eg; you can use an AGPL-licensed .dll in your closed-source windows program, because users can swap that .dll easily.

    You can’t do the same for a ps5 game because users aren’t able to replace any files that the game uses.


  • If you’re developing software for a platform that doesn’t allow users to replace dynamic libraries (game consoles, iOS, many embedded/commercial systems), you won’t be able to legally use any GPL or AGPL libraries.

    While I strongly agree with the motives behind copyleft licenses, I personally never use them because I’ve had many occasions where I was unable to use any available library for a specific task because they all had incompatible licenses.

    I release code for the sole purpose of allowing others to use it. I don’t want to impose any restrictions on my fellow developers, because I understand the struggle it can bring.

    Even for desktop programs, I prefer MIT or BSD because it allows others to take snippets of code without needing to re-license anything.

    Yes I understand that means anyone can make a closed-source fork, but that doesn’t bother me.
    If I wanted to sell it I might care, but I would have used a different license for a commercial project anyway.