{"id":"LGPL-3.0-only-with-LGPL-3.0-linking-exception","title":"GNU Lesser General Public License version 3.0 with LGPL-3.0 Linking Exception","reviewed_on":"2026-09-22","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spdx/license-list-data/main/text/LGPL-3.0-only.txt","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"created","summary":"The record models GNU Lesser General Public License version 3.0 with the exception the SPDX list calls LGPL-3.0-linking-exception. It copies the model of LGPL-3.0-only statement for statement and adds what the exception grants. The exception drops the relinking and installation-information conditions for a combined work that links to the library. The copyleft of the base licence still reaches the library, not the application that links to it, and the exception text is quoted in full in dalicc:additionalClauses.","findings":[{"rubric":1,"severity":"info","field":"spdx:licenseId","description":"The file name, the identifier and the local name of the odrl:Set IRI are all LGPL-3.0-only-with-LGPL-3.0-linking-exception. spdx:licenseId carries the SPDX expression \"LGPL-3.0-only WITH LGPL-3.0-linking-exception\", with one space, an upper-case WITH and one more space, which is how the SPDX list writes a licence combined with an exception.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":2,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:target","description":"One odrl:AssetCollection of dct:type dcmitype:Software, copied from LGPL-3.0-only. The exception speaks of code, modules and executables throughout.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"The Lesser GPL version 3 grants the rights of the GNU GPL version 3 with the additional permissions of sections 3 to 5, so the record permits reproduce, distribute, modify, derive, display, present, commercial use, derivative works and modified works. The record therefore keeps every permission of LGPL-3.0-only: reproduce, distribute, modify, derive, display, present, commercial use, derivative works, modified works and charging a distribution fee. The exception adds one more. It reads: \"As a special exception to the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 (\"LGPL3\"), the copyright holders of this Library give you permission to convey to a third party a Combined Work that links statically or dynamically to this Library without providing any Minimal Corresponding Source or Minimal Application Code as set out in 4d or providing the installation information set out in section 4e, provided that you comply with the other provisions of LGPL3 and provided that you meet, for the Application the terms and conditions of the license(s) which apply to the Application.\" That is material the licence carves out of its own condition, so it is modelled as a permission dalicc:exceptedCombination.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"The prohibitions of LGPL-3.0-only stay as they are. dalicc:ChangeLicense is still prohibited, because the exception narrows the reach of the reciprocity and does not let the covered work itself leave the licence. The exception drops the relinking conditions of section 4d and the installation information of section 4e and states that otherwise nothing changes: \"Except as stated in this special exception, the provisions of LGPL3 will continue to comply in full to this Library.\"","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"dalicc:promote is prohibited because LGPL-3.0-only prohibits it and an exception record keeps every statement of its base. Neither the base text nor the exception has a trademark or endorsement clause, so the prohibition is a library convention here and not text-supported. The review of GPL-2.0-only proposed removing it library-wide.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:duty","description":"The licence-wide cc:ShareAlike duty of LGPL-3.0-only stays on the odrl:Set, because the reciprocity of the base licence still covers the whole work. cc:Attribution, cc:Notice and cc:SourceCode stay on distribute, modify and derive, and dalicc:modificationNotice on modify and derive. The carve-out is conditional on complying with the other provisions of the base licence and with the licence of the application. Both are conditions about other terms rather than duties of this licence, so the dalicc:exceptedCombination permission carries no duty and the proviso stays in the quoted clause.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"minor","field":"dalicc:reciprocityScope","description":"dalicc:reciprocityScope says in words how far the copyleft reaches after the exception: \"the library, not the application that links to it\". The base record carries no such annotation, because without the exception the reciprocity reaches the whole work.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"major","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"The exception text is quoted verbatim as one literal of dalicc:additionalClauses, from https://spdx.org/licenses/LGPL-3.0-linking-exception.html. Line breaks and runs of spaces were collapsed to single spaces, the way every other clause literal in the library is written; no word was changed, added or dropped. The warranty disclaimer and the limitation of liability are the ones of LGPL-3.0-only, quoted verbatim from the base text, because the exception changes neither.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":7,"severity":"info","field":"cc:jurisdiction","description":"The base text and the exception name no legal system, so cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide, dalicc:validityType stays dalicc:perpetual and no dalicc:governingLaw is stated. The termination and cure terms of the base licence are untouched by the exception.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"dalicc:exceptedCombination","description":"The exception carves the combination out of the condition of the licence, not out of its grant. dalicc:exemptedMaterial says the opposite and is prohibited on OGL-UK-1.0, OGL-UK-2.0 and NLOD-2.0, where it means material the licence never granted. The vocabulary defines dalicc:exceptedCombination for this side of it since 2026-09-23, and the record carries it as a permission.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"The exception may be dropped. The text says: \"If you modify this Library, you may apply this exception to your version of this Library, but you are not obliged to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version.\" Nothing in the vocabulary says that a permission is optional for a downstream modifier, so a copy of this work may carry the base licence alone and still be true to the text. Proposed term: dalicc:removableAdditionalPermission, an annotation saying that a modifier may delete the exception statement.","action":"none"},{"rubric":9,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The consistency check against dg_default returned no conflicts. The exempted permission is a new action for the checker, it is not prohibited anywhere and the dependency graph holds no relation for it, so it neither triggers nor hides a conflict. The share-alike rule is not triggered, because dalicc:ChangeLicense stays prohibited.","action":"none"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"info","field":"dalicc:variantOf","description":"The record is the base licence plus the exception, so it repeats LGPL-3.0-only statement for statement and adds four things: the dalicc:exceptedCombination permission, the dalicc:reciprocityScope annotation, the exception text in dalicc:additionalClauses and the pair dalicc:variantKind \"exception\" with dalicc:variantOf dalicclib:LGPL-3.0-only. Nothing the base states was removed.","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"}],"family":"GNU copyleft family (GPL, LGPL, AGPL, FDL)","port_of":null,"variant_kind":"exception","variant_of":"LGPL-3.0-only","notes":"The base licence text is the SPDX text of LGPL-3.0-only, retrieved on 2026-09-22; the exception text is the SPDX text of LGPL-3.0-linking-exception, from https://spdx.org/licenses/LGPL-3.0-linking-exception.html. Nothing here is legal advice: the record says what the two texts say and quotes them. An exception record never removes a statement its base carries, so anything that looks wrong in this record and is also in LGPL-3.0-only belongs to the base record and is written up as a proposal instead."}