I think all freepascal people have a misunderstanding of LGPL.

If you statically link the lgpl code into your EXE, your exe is the module under lgpl now. Therefore all code must be released. Statically linked lgpl code in an exe is not a dll that can be shipped separately.

This means currently all freepascal developers are violating the license if they don't release their sources with their Exe that is statically linked with lgpl sources.

The way to get around this is to ship object files with your application so that you can relink the application.

Since freepascal and delphi is very "ship one exe" oriented (compile all into single exe) and since dll's aren't used to ship the RTL, this means freepascal developers all around the world are currently violating the lgpl since the Exe you ship to people is a lgpl module, not your own module under your own license.

I personally couldn't care less if you ship your exe without your source code... but I think freepascal users and developers have grossly misinterpreted what legally the LGPL actually means.

If you read up on it on the internet you will see that the work around is to ship your RTL in a separate dll, or ship it as object files along with object files that your application needs to be recompiled. This is a huge inconvenience for developers IMO and is why LGPL/GPL is even more obnoxious than the so called bsd advertising clause problem.

I wrote

If you statically link the lgpl code into your EXE, your exe is the module under lgpl now. Therefore all code must be released. Statically linked lgpl code in an exe is not a dll that can be shipped separately.

Nevermind, I see this has been discussed:

http://free-pascal-general.1045716.n5.nabble.com/Name-for-our-license-td2823357.html

Essentially, freepascal RTL is not LGPL, it's a new modified LGPL.

On what do you base this understanding? Mine is that what you're saying applies to GPL, but not to LGPL.

Even without the modified LGPL, you are wrong afaik. LGPL is about keeping the original code open, while allow you to do commercial work without releasing your own source. GPL is all about viral licensing. AFAIK the modified LGPL, claims that there will be no request at all to release such sources at any point

AFAIK LGPL requires that your application can be linked with a newer or modified version of the LGPL library by the end user so you must distribute the object files of your application as Lars writes.

Martin