GPL & LGPL

OOo operates with two licenses. These were explained by Chris LeBlanc on 12/20/04: http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=users&msgNo=81705

GPL - This is the General Public License from the GNU project. This core of this license is that you may freely use, modify or redistribute (including within your office, or even for money). The only restriction is that whoever you distribute the software to, has the exact same license as you do. That means that you can not provide the software to someone, and then tell them that they can not give it to others, the software does not belong to you in that way. If you make changes to the software, those changes fall under this license also. If you use GPL software in your program, then your entire program must also be GPLed.

LGPL - The Lesser General Public License, also from the GNU project. This license is very similar to the GPL, with one exception. That is, you can link your software the LGPL code without making your software also LGPLed. This way, if there are some libraries within OpenOffice, and you decided to use those as a foundation for your own non-LGPL program, then you can as long as you: a)include the LGPL libraries in their original form, and still covered by the LGPL, and b)your program can only link to those libraries, so if they are not installed on a machine, then your program would not run. This keeps people from mass-copying LGPL libraries into their programs and claiming it all as their work.

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Last Edited 21 June 2006