Dual-licensing LGPL 2.1 and LGPL 3

Question

I maintain a software, a small PHP library, that is released under the LGPL version 3 license (LGPLv3). Someone wants to use the library in their software which has the GPL version 2 license. This license compatibility matrix suggests this is not possible without changing the licensing terms of one of the software. I have been requested to dual-license my code under LGPLv2.1 and LGPLv3. Does it make sense, and what might the drawbacks be?

Thank you.

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 26 '12 at 20:40

3

The major drawback is that you lose the benefit of the changes made in LGPLv3. These changes mainly clarify how libraries may be combined with other works.

I would suggest just dual-licensing under LGPLv3 and plain GPLv2. This will give the other software project what they want, while mostly not giving up the benefits of LGPLv3.

answered Mar 26 '12 at 20:40

+1: Sound suggestion IMHO, probably GPLv2+ (version 2 or later) and LGPLv3. – hakre Apr 07 '12 at 14:10
Thanks for the comments... I have decided to go with GPLv2+ and LGPLv3. – user594694 Apr 12 '12 at 02:58

Dual-licensing LGPL 2.1 and LGPL 3

1 Answers1