The GNU Lesser General Public License (formerly the GNU Library General Public License) or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License. The GNU Library General Public License (as the LGPL was originally named) was published in 1991, and adopted the version number 2 for parity with GPL version 2. The LGPL was revised in minor ways in the 2.1 point release, published in 1999, when it was renamed the GNU Lesser General Public License to reflect the FSF's position that not all libraries should use it. Version 3 of the LGPL was published in 2007 as a list of additional permissions applied to GPL version 3.
The LGPL places copyleft restrictions on the program governed under it but does not apply these restrictions to other software that merely link with the program. There are, however, certain other restrictions on this software.
The LGPL is primarily used for software libraries, although it is also used by some stand-alone applications.
Read more about GNU Lesser General Public License: Differences From The GPL, Choosing To License A Library Under The GPL or The LGPL, Programming Languages Specificity
Famous quotes containing the words lesser, general, public and/or license:
“Flower sent to flower;
for white hands, the lesser white,
less lovely of flower leaf.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“It was the words “descended into Hades”
That seemed too pagan to our liberal youth.
You know they suffered from a general onslaught.
And well, if they weren’t true why keep right on
Saying them like the heathen? We could drop them.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“That the public can grow accustomed to any face is proved by the increasing prevalence of Keith’s ruined physiognomy on TV documentaries and chat shows, as familiar and homely a horror as Grandpa in The Munsters.”
—Philip Norman, British author, journalist. The Life and Good Times of the Rolling Stones, introduction (1989)
“Surely the fates are forever kind, though Nature’s laws are more immutable than any despot’s, yet to man’s daily life they rarely seem rigid, but permit him to relax with license in summer weather. He is not harshly reminded of the things he may not do.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)