question about gnu lesser liscence

[adams161]

Hi,

I'm writing a little chess app, want to charge like 99 cents or 1.99 and sell it on android phones. the goal is not to make a lot of money, and I'll probably give away copies to people from countries without android store. Money is sort of a way of keeping score plus if i can pay for my phone with say 100 sales ( if I'm lucky ) then at least my phone habit is paying for itself.

Now here is the question. The program will be ostensibly closed source and paid. I found that the xboard pieces in jin are the monge xboard pieces and found this link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... ial_bn.svg which allowed me to find out what liscence they are under. it's the gnu lesser license. My understanding is a closed source program can use things under the lesser license as long as you don't restrict the ablity of anyone to use that thing you are using and make clear that that thing your using is under the lesser license and doesn't belong to your program. some of the jin code for example is under the lesser not the regular gnu for example.

Alex said he did that so jin code that is essentially just library files can be taken and used by anyone as long as they dont modify the files they take and keep the files they take and leave them under the same liscence.

Android allows a web link of the program, so i thought making the pieces and their copyright available on that link in a prominent way would satisfy the license since I'm saying hey you like my programs pieces here they are and anyone is free to use them as they belong to Monge on his license.

Is this the case?

Mike

[adams161]

Looks like some of my information is not accurate. the jin change log says he added new chess pieces from Monge, in .14 i think, but Alex only links to Monges page which is down , so i can't tell which pieces out of the jin pieces are Monge's and under the gnu lesser.

Also does anyone know what license the xboard pieces in jin are under?

Mike

[adams161]

the application i am writing is an ICC interface via android. it's mostly done. i have beta testers chatting, playing, examining and observing.

I suspect the gnu lesser license is one i can use. doesn't anyone know what the Monge chess pieces contributed to jin are?

Because i am going to charge, even if it's just 2 dollars, i have to ask these questions.

phone programming is another world. we are not big time programmers, i've put in hundreds of hours into this code, which has been part of my interface, and i'll never even make minimum wage, but that was never the point. Just thinking if i could cover the cost of the phone i bought.

Mike

[jdart]

> Alex said he did that so jin code that is essentially just library files can
> be taken and used by anyone as long as they dont modify the files
> they take and keep the files they take and leave them under the
> same liscence.

Yes, LGPL is usually used for libraries. So you can link to them and not incur the GPL source distribution requirements for the code you are linking from.

There are some requirements, however, in terms of shipping with the license and documenting that the library code is under it. Also the library you are linking to has to be replaceable by a modified version. That is most easily achieved by using dynamic linking. The details are in the license.

--Jon

[adams161]

Sounds good. In this case it's the monge chess pieces ( images) so i'll just make it clear they are lgpl and make it known were to get them who has copyright etc. i just place them in a folder for program to use them so they could easily be replaced by an update and anyone could do the same thing. No linking to them

Outstanding question is what Jin chess pieces are LGPL. it seems the Monge chess pieces are but which are they?

Mike

[adams161]

I found which pieces in jin are the Monge pieces. It includes pieces sets like fantasy and spatial.

Jin doesn't state the copyright for any of the pieces it looks like except the 5 or 6 folders that contain different piece sets. In these authorship is attributed to Monge and the license is LGPL. the L stands for library apparently.

Looks like I can use them as long as the android application allows people to extract the apk file, make modifications to the pieces and remake the apk ( android executable jar ), and run their changes. I"m exploring if users can do this. I would have to distribute without copy protection of course. Its unfortunate that the resources are compiled into the apk or jar like file, and not separate folders, as that would be simpler as to letting users re-link.

Mike

[adams161]

Its an ICC interface for android. I combined pieces from the spatial and fantasy monge piece sets. Here is a digital photograph of the board and pieces and my phone with this set. I'm examining a game.

http://www.adam16mr.org/android-phoneshot-3.jpg

Mike
author of Pulsar