ImagesForLazarus licensing

[anrthierry]

I can't understand clearly how is licensed the package ImagesForLazarus,
in readme it says you can use it freely in commercial products,
and in sources it is LGPL 2;

so ? can it be linked with commercial applications without releasing source code like the lcl ? or not ?

what do i have to do if i link statically LazJpg or other in my commercial software ?

thanks
thierry

[anrthierry]

On other hand my question is:
does ImagesForLazarus package's license permits static linking to produce closed exe file with lazarus or not ?

[DirkS]

Do you really need this package? Looking at the code it's pretty much an empty container, linking to existing FPC code; unit Graphics (except for the tga format).

BTW: the readme in the source directory does not have any info about licencing; maybe you were looking at the readme for the examples.

Gr.
Dirk.

[Leledumbo]

in readme it says you can use it freely in commercial products,
and in sources it is LGPL 2;

AFAIK LGPL allows commercial usage without releasing source code.

[anrthierry]

Do you really need this package? Looking at the code it's pretty much an empty container, linking to existing FPC code; unit Graphics (except for the tga format).

BTW: the readme in the source directory does not have any info about licencing; maybe you were looking at the readme for the examples.

Gr.
Dirk.

In fact i need TJpegImage and TPngImage just like in delphi (reading/writing png and jpeg in resources, streams and files), tga and gif support would be appreciated too,
and they say ImagesForlazarus is just like delphi's TJpegImage, so i began using ImagesForLazarus for my project, til i read the license and didn't know what to do when i saw Imagesforlazarus was LGPL 2.
Is there a way to have delphi's image manipulation object just by using the LCL ? How ?


Yes i looked at the readme in the examples directory 

thanks

[anrthierry]

in readme it says you can use it freely in commercial products,
and in sources it is LGPL 2;

AFAIK LGPL allows commercial usage without releasing source code.

Yes (modified LGPL),
but are you sure, absolutely sure that ImagesForLazarus package is licensed as modified LGPL ?
(it's the sense of my first question)

[anrthierry]

ok i found it,
it was TPortableNetworkGraphic and TJpegImage in the Graphics unit of LCL,

thanks DirkS,

but i think it would be cool for lazarus project expansion, to clarify what can be used statically in a commercial application and what needs open source code.

By the way would someone knows how to use Ogg Vorbis files with the LCL only ?

[DirkS]

but are you sure, absolutely sure that ImagesForLazarus package is licensed as modified LGPL ?
(it's the sense of my first question)

Cannot check the code ATM, but IIRC the licence in the ImagesForLazarus code is actually GPL, not LGPL...

As I understand it ImagesForLazarus was used in the past for image manipulation, but as more and more of it was integrated in FPC it became just a container with references to the Graphics unit. The only code in the JPG unit is something like 'TJpgImg = TJpegImage'.

Gr.
Dirk.

[anrthierry]

so it should be usable in commercial static linked exe ?

well not clear at all, Lazarus should contain a LGPL components folder with all the components that cannot be linked statically with commercial applications, and a LCL components folder,
i think it is a MUST TO DO if we want lazarus to be used widely,

well at least it's my opinion,

thanks for your help,
Thierry