Android license question

[geometer]

As far as I understand, the LGPL license for the Java portion of the code effectively makes the library unsuitable for closed-source Android projects. Although the LGPL allows libraries to be used in closed-source applications, it requires that the library is replaceable in the binary package. This is straightforward for the C++ part, which is packaged as a shared library. However, the Java code gets compiled and bundled into classes.dex, which doesn’t seem to make replacement possible.

I imagine there might already be applications using this project or its derivatives that violate the LGPL. However, this is a block for developers who take open-source terms seriously (like me).

Would you please consider licensing the Android/Java bindings under a more permissive license? That could make the project more useful to a wider audience.

Anyway, thanks for considering this and for your work on the project!

[borisbrodski]

Thank you for pointing this issue. I was not awared of it.

There are commercial projects using 7-Zip-JBinding.

Personally I'm ok to use any license including public domain. I chose LGPL to be able to alter and redistribute 7zip.

[geometer]

Thank you, that sounds great! I have one small question for clarification: you wrote "Personally" — does this mean the final decision could be influenced by someone else? If you have the authority to decide, would it be possible to publish in the repo a small file, like "LGPL exception" that explains that on Android the Java code could be linked with no limitation? That would allow us to use the library in our product.