XmHTML Legal Issues, Distribution and Licensing
Author: Koen D'Hondt

# Introduction

This document discusses the legal issues involved with using XmHTML in any program, but is mainly intended for those who want to use XmHTML in a commercial program.

If you intend to use XmHTML with a program which will be distributed under the GPL or combine XmHTML into a library distributed under the LGPL, you can skip this document entirely.

# Licensing and Distribution

XmHTML is distributed and licensed under the Library GNU Public License (LGPL). This license is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users.

The LGPL distinguishes two different uses of a library, each of which is described in the following paragraphs.

### A work based on the library

Simply said, this means that you have modified a copy of the library (or any portion of it), or use parts of the library in a program. The resulting library must be distributed and licensed under the same terms, while the resulting program may opt to use the GNU Public License instead.

A work based on the library may never become commercialized.

See section 2 and 3 in the LGPL for more details.

### A work that uses the library

This means: you have written a program the uses the library. (using header files from the library does not make it a work based on the library, header files are public interfaces and as such may be used without further consent).

Such a program may be distributed under any license you choose, and thus XmHTML can also be used in commercial programs. See the next section for more details on using XmHTML in commercial programs. See section 5 and 6 in the LGPL for more details.

# Use of XmHTML in commercial programs

Section 6 in the LGPL clearly states the requirements to any commercial program using XmHTML. It is mostly intended to allow users to upgrade and/or modify the library without depending on the vendor of such a program.

If you find it very hard to comply with the requirements stated in section 6, you can obtain XmHTML under a different license which will allow full commercial use without any restrictions. This license does not exist yet but it will be a one-time source license with no run-time fees associated with it.

This license however will come with a pricetag attached to it. Please contact us if you want to know more about this.

©Copyright 1996-1997 by Ripley Software Development
Last update: September 19, 1997 by Koen