COPYING - license information & the public license terms

The zziplib is a small library that allows for some parts of obfuscation. This i
s very handy in commercial projects which tend to incorporate a copy into their
source tree. And with obfuscation it is often advisable to staticlink the zzipli
b part and `strip` the symbols from the resulting binary - in order to obfuscate
the usage of a standard library for semi-`encryption` of data files.
In the past I have been modifying the original LGPL license with a text that all
ows staticlinking thereby taking over a few paragraphs from the MPL as restricti
ons to do so, just to defend against improper usage. However I kept being asked
legalese questions since most people do not want to interpret added text either
and on their own without a lawyer. However that accounts to me as well.
The public license(s) are simply there to protect me and my work, none of this i
s fixed and it is neither the only possible way to get hold of a proper license.
You can always contact me to negotiate a special one if you do need so. In most
cases I will just say okay and you get it for free, perhaps after some presenta
tions I will ask for som tax-reductable compensation sent to a wellfare organisa
tion (never me!).
A last hint from a friend did make me think as well, as that the whole point of
using standard public licenses is to protect against the need to use your own la
wyers in the case that someone breaks the license rules. If one uses a standard
license then it is in the interest of that big organization XY that the license
will be enforced and that it will be shown valid in all courts. At the time of w
riting, no opensource license has ever been discussed to an end in a court trial
.
That's why at last, I decided to change the COPYING details once again - and sta
rt shipping under a dual MPL / LGPL license where each of them is separate and r
estrictions apply alternatively. Remember that each license is non-exclusive any
way, and I can give out as many licenses as I want, here we have one as MPL, the
n we have one as LGPL, and perhaps you ask me for a third text to send you over.
The public ones are just there for you as a free choice which you can pick with
out negotiations or a fee.
And yes, you will be on established legal grounds as long as you restrict your u
sage of the library to the details contained in either COPYING text. And better
yet, the legal possibilities have been discussed a few hundred times before. You
will surely find good answers on the internet as well to guide you to decisions
in your company whether zziplib may be adopted for a specific task.
The sources themselves are sent out under a dual license, with both MPL and LGPL
license options, and as long as the MPL part is not removed then the recpient o
f some modified sources will be entitled to the same choice among the public lic
enses of LGPL / MPL. Note that some example sources are given away under the ZLI
B license which is nothing more than asking for nice behavior which should have
been the case even without such a text. (However, it is just a fact that some pe
ople happen to behave anti-social especially under pressure of capitalist needs,
said to lower the risks for commercial success/failure of a company. You have t
o enforce good behavior or it will be "forgotten". With a license it is not just
an error, it is a risk in itself to forget about it)
As for staticlinking, let us explore that a bit - there has been a debate that t
he LGPL warrants in fact the freedom of the final recipient as you must give him
the original or modified sources of zziplib, to allow them to modify that part
again, and then (re-)link to your own parts. Your own parts may come in the form
of precompiled objects without sources (as opposed to the GPL restrictions). In
here, it is simply easier to use a dynamic linker that does the re-linking job

at startup-time of the whole project instead to provide a makefile and linkage d

escriptions to let the user do the staticlink it into a combined executable obje
ct. The latter however is often needed for embedded environments and it is quite
of the original motivation to ask for a staticlink option where in fact the LGP
L does allow it anyway as long as you ship all parts separatly as well.
The MPL defines the area of a combined work a bit differently, in a way it deriv
es some ideas from BSD'ish licenses. This part does more care to protect the `In
tellectual Properties` of the original developers. It does ask to prominently sh
ow off that you have gone to link with the work of someone else in your project.
Take special note of "3.5 Required Notices", "3.6 Distribution of Executable Ve
rsions" and "3.7 Larger Works" here. Or read a lawyer text on the legal result o
f the whole license.