{"id":"LGPL-3.0-only","title":"GNU Lesser General Public License version 3.0","reviewed_on":"2026-09-15","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spdx/license-list-data/main/text/LGPL-3.0-only.txt","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"corrected","summary":"The record is a byte-for-byte copy of the GPL-3.0-only model: the same permissions, the same license-wide share-alike duty, the same prohibition on changing the license. The one thing that distinguishes the Lesser GPL from the GPL, the right to convey a Combined Work under terms of your choice, only appears as prose in dalicc:additionalClauses and not as a modelled permission. That is the main open issue.","findings":[{"rubric":1,"severity":"minor","field":"spdx:licenseId","description":"Added the SPDX list id LGPL-3.0-only.","action":"applied","change":"spdx:licenseId \"LGPL-3.0-only\" ;\n"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"Section 4 of the GPL, which the Lesser GPL incorporates, states: \"You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey.\" Added the missing dalicc:chargeDistributionFee permission.","action":"applied","change":"odrl:permission [ a odrl:Permission ;\n        odrl:action dalicc:chargeDistributionFee ] ;\n"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"Section 4 states: \"You may convey a Combined Work under terms of your choice that, taken together, effectively do not restrict modification of the portions of the Library contained in the Combined Work.\" The record prohibits dalicc:ChangeLicense exactly as GPL-3.0-only does, so the weak copyleft of the Lesser GPL is not distinguishable from the strong copyleft of the GPL in any compatibility result. The text of section 4 is already quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses. Interpretive, so left open for the association's decision.","action":"proposed","change":"# remove\nodrl:prohibition [ a odrl:Prohibition ;\n        odrl:action dalicc:ChangeLicense ] ;\n# add\nodrl:permission [ a odrl:Permission ;\n        odrl:action dalicc:ChangeLicense ;\n        odrl:duty [ a odrl:Duty ;\n                odrl:action dalicc:compliantLicense ] ] ;\n"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"minor","field":"dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer","description":"The record carries no warranty disclaimer and no liability limitation. The Lesser GPL has none of its own: sections 15 and 16 of the GPL apply through section 4 of the Lesser GPL. Copying the GPL text into this record would quote a different document, so it is proposed rather than applied.","action":"proposed","change":"dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer \"THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. ...\" ;\n"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"vocabulary","description":"Section 4(d)(0) and 4(e), the \"suitable shared library mechanism\" and installation information duties that make relinking possible, have no vocabulary term. Proposed term: dalicc:relinkingInformation. Patent grant and patent retaliation inherited from the GPL are gaps too.","action":"none"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"major","field":"record","description":"Standard-license addition of 2026-09-15, decision 9: the record was corrected against its new siblings and versioned. The review's finding on family consistency: the record carried neither a warranty disclaimer nor a liability limitation although 'This version of the GNU Lesser General Public License incorporates the terms and conditions of version 3 of the GNU General Public License', whose sections 15 and 16 are the two clauses, and it did not carry section 4 of that text either.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"dalicc:promote was prohibited and no sentence of this text supports it. The statement was the library's reading of a legal default, that a copyright licence which says nothing about endorsement grants no right to it, and it sat in 519 of 581 records as a house convention. That reading is now an adopted dalicc:DefaultRule of the core dependency graph, which supplies it to every licence that is silent about the action, so a compatibility check reaches the same answer and the record states only what the text states. Removed on 2026-09-23; see section 13 of docs/LICENSE_REVIEW.md.","action":"applied","change":"# removed\nodrl:prohibition [ a odrl:Prohibition ;\n        odrl:action dalicc:promote ] ;\n"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"minor","field":"dalicc:WarrantyOrLiabilityAcceptance","description":"dalicc:WarrantyOrLiabilityAcceptance held the whole sentence of Section 4, \"You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee.\" Its first half is the permission to charge for a copy, which the record states as dalicc:chargeDistributionFee, and not a warranty clause. The literal now quotes only the second half, \"you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee\".","action":"applied"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"major","field":"dalicc:compatibleWith","description":"Section 2 lets a modified version of the Library be conveyed \"under the GNU GPL, with none of the additional permissions of this License applicable to that copy.\" The GNU GPL is version 3 of it or, where the Library says so, any later version. dalicc:compatibleWith names GPL-3.0-only, GPL-3.0-or-later.","action":"applied"}],"family":"GNU copyleft family (GPL, LGPL, AGPL, FDL)","port_of":null,"variant_kind":"version","notes":"Version variant inside the GNU family. Weak copyleft, currently modelled as strong copyleft."}