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Comment by radarsat1 | Hacker News Reader

How does LGPL enable the iOS port?

My understanding of LGPL is that it requires that users be able to switch out the LGPL-licensed code. This implies dynamic linking, not a difficult proposition, but more fundamentally it requires that users are able to access the LGPL code portion, delete it, and replace it with something else. I don't see how any old iOS user can do this without paying a dev fee.

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Yes, you need to be able to switch out the LGPL-licensed code, but dynamic linking is just the most convenient way to doing that—it's certainly never been required. You can also offer the rest of your combined work's code in a form suitable for re-linking (e.g., by providing .o or .a files for the rest of your app).

There is no requirement that end users be able to do any of this on a platform without becoming licensed developers for that platform. (At the time LGPL was written, many platform vendors charged hundreds or even thousands of dollars for their developer tools.)

You could do a proprietary application about libVLC+VLCKit and distribute on the AppStore. And one could still side-load your application.

I thought that that was the point of contention; that it is not normally possible to sideload software onto iOS devices. If sideloading was possible (hmm, would jailbreaking count?), no biggie, just make the object files available for linking like Sparrow did (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/lgpl.php).

> I thought that that was the point of contention

I think not. The issues were mainly 2:

- The Apple EULA was applied ON TOP of the GPL, whatever happened. This was clearly incompatible. And this is not resolved with Apple updates on the iTunes ToS.

- The Apple ToS did not allowed you to use the App for every use, which is a violation of the GPL §0. This is still an issue today.

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