Description of problem: Dovecot is an IMAP/POP server mostly licensed under the LGPL 2.1. LGPL 2.1 section 2 says: "a) The modified work must itself be a software library." See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html for full license text. Red Hat SRPM contains patches that modify dovecot but the "modified work" is still a server, not "a software library". So it seems that at least in theory here might be a violation of LGPL. Additional info: dovecot was just one of many candidates that are licensed under the LGPL, modified, and not distributed as "a software library". If we read the LGPL literally, this might be a problem. But I hope you prove me being wrong. If not, then I don't know what to do with all those non-library RPMs distributed under LGPL today.
I'll go and check if dovecot links with anything GPL-incompatible. If no, we can easily opt for plain GPL so this becomes a non-issue. If not, i'll see how is 2a) to be interpreted in context of non-libraries. *Goes investigating*.
Any news with this?
So, any news with this now?
The issue is moot, since we link against mysql client libs which are GPL which means we have to use GPL anyway. Although i believe that modifying LGPL program and distributing again under LGPL is legal, I am not a lawyer so i can't help you much on that.