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wo80 / CSparse.NET

A concise library for solving sparse linear systems with direct methods.
GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1
58 stars 25 forks source link

Dual Licensing #23

Closed epsi1on closed 4 years ago

epsi1on commented 5 years ago

Hi there. How can someone use CSparse.NET in a commercial closed source software? Does it need re-licensing? or pay for new license? Thanks

wo80 commented 5 years ago

I'm surely no expert at this, but I think there's no problem using LGPL licensed libraries in commercial software. What you cannot do is copying (parts of) the code directly into your application (at least, if you want to keep it closed source).

More details here: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/439136.html

wo80 commented 5 years ago

https://dzone.com/articles/the-lgpl-license

The LGPL is a weaker form of the GPL that is not contagious over library boundaries. Originally, LGPL was read out as Library General Public License. It has now been reinterpreted to be read out as the Lesser General Public License. I assume they mean lesser, as in less strong in forcing software to be open source.

Applying LGPL to a library ensures that the library itself and any modified versions of it will remain open source. But it can be used by closed source software.