[Lazarus] Concerning GPL compatibility with more permissive licenses

[Reinier Olislagers]

On 30-6-2013 5:37, Kenneth Cochran wrote:
> Most or all of the Lazarus source is covered under the GPL. It is my
> understanding that the GPL requires derivative works (by static linking)
> to also be open source. Do derivative works necessarily need to be under
> the same license? I would like to release my framework under a more
> permissive license to encourage commercial extension authors from the
> Delphi side to port to Lazarus.

AFAIU:
The GPL means you have to license your work under GPL as well. However,
nothing stops you to dual-license it e.g. with an additional MIT or BSD
license at the user's choice.

The thing is that once it is distributed with Lazarus, the GPL applies
anyway, so modifications would need to be released as GPL anyway. Having
a plugin interface with dynamically linked libraries may obviate that
(though not everybody has the same opinion about DLLs).