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Releasing ROS packages under LGPL/BSD

asked 2012-08-08 08:05:21 -0500

piyushk
2861 ●31 ●49 ●76 http://cs.utexas.edu/~piyushk

I am writing a ROS wrapper for a library released under LGPL. I had a few questions regarding releasing the ROS Wrapper:

The library gets downloaded as a ROS Package. I assume that this package should be marked as LGPL?
Since no modifications were made to the library, the ROS Wrapper (inside the same stack) can be licensed under BSD?
The overarching stack with 3-4 packages can still be released under the BSD?
Given the ROS paradigm, if a stack does not need to be modified locally by the end user, does it matter if it is released under a BSD or LGPL license?

Similar questions seem to have been discussed for GPL vs BSD in this thread: http://answers.ros.org/question/12313/using-gpl-licensed-packages-in-a-commercial/

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answered 2012-08-08 10:01:47 -0500

Eric Perko

8406 ●73 ●90 ●144 http://ericperko.com/

I'll comment with my understanding..

Yes, that package should be LGPL, because it is distributing the LGPL component (and if you went and looked at the source code, it would be LGPL licensed).
Yes, your ROS wrapper that simply links against the LGPL code can be BSD, as long as it doesn't include any LGPL code (e.g. you didn't copy-paste anything from the LGPL code into your BSD code)
The overaching stack should list it's license as BSD/LGPL because it does contain some LGPL code in that library wrapper package.
BSD makes it easier if the user does need to modify it. Remember you aren't so much licensing the entire stack as just listing the licenses used by each of the packages in it. And even then, the actual license is whatever is in each file/library (e.g. the standard BSD header at the top of most of the core ROS files).

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Asked: 2012-08-08 08:05:21 -0500

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Last updated: Aug 08 '12

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