license permits reverse engineering and modification, help !

[joly2]

hi
i just read section 6 (below) and it says that our commercial applications using JFreeChart must allow the user to decompile or modify our work if they want to..this section (below) refers to our applications, and not JFreeChart....am i on the wrong trail here anyone? so consumers can actually decompile our code and modify it??? now i'm not so sure i should use JFreeChart. But can they also give our code away freely (along with JFreeChart)?? From what i gather, this they can't do.



"
As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a "work that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided that the terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications.
"


Joseph

[zany]

Hi,

as Java makes use of dynamic linking that rule has no substance.

Just place the jfreechart-0.9.16.jar (and jcommon-0.9.1.jar) along with your commercial.jar.
Users are allowed to replace and examine the free libs (.jar, .so or .dll) other things on your classpath are out of scope.

In any case don't alter JFreeCharts packages, place a prominent notice that your app makes use of jfreechart and the LGPL will be liberal mostly.

cu,
Christian

[Taqua]

Hi,

One requirement of the LGPL is, that the application using the LGPL work must not refuse to work with newer or modified versions of the library.

This paragraph is included to make sure, that users can modify the JFreeChart library from your application and use that modified library with your application (a right granted by the LGPL).

Some vendors try to include integrity-checks in their applications and refuse to work with modified versions of LGPL-libraries. To prevent that (and to give the user the freedom to change the library (not your code!)) this statement was included.

And you are free to alter JFreeChart - just ship the complete sourcecode for the modified library with your program, and you will have no problems with the LGPL at all.

The whole text does not cover your code. You are free to use any technique available to protect your code - but make sure that the JFreeChart code is not affected by these protections. So if you want to use a bytecode obfuscator, do it. This will be fine, as long as it is not applied to the JFreeChart code.

Have more fun,
said Thomas

[david.gilbert]

Thanks Thomas, you've explained that really well!