Lets say you make a 3D renderer and add an open source physics engine, what affect would it have on the 3D renderer? Woudld you be recquired to release the 3D renderers source code?

It depends on the licence for example under GPL I'm pretty sure the 3D renderer must be released as open source but under LGPL as long as you compile them seperatly and then link it together it doesnt and for the Boost Softtware Licence it has no effect on the 3D renderer.

Conclusion: Read the licence carefully, GPL is one of the most restrictive but most will dont require the 3D renderer to be released as open source provided you <insert restrictions here>.

Oh ok, so LGPL and Boost let you keep your stuff.

What about the commercialization? If you want to license something with the open source thing stuck on, lets say with GPL, could you still license it despite having to have it open source? OR would no one want it because they can get a free version?

Could you sell its binaries at least?

The answers to your questions.

Quote: Original post by Julian90
It depends on the licence for example under GPL I'm pretty sure the 3D renderer must be released as open source but under LGPL as long as you compile them seperatly and then link it together it doesnt and for the Boost Softtware Licence it has no effect on the 3D renderer.

Conclusion: Read the licence carefully, GPL is one of the most restrictive but most will dont require the 3D renderer to be released as open source provided you <insert restrictions here>.

for LGPL libraries you have to ensure that the end user can modify/update the LGPL part of the program. (dymamic linking is the easiest way imo as it enables the end user to simply replace the dll/shared object with a modified one)

There are other opensource licences that are even less restrictive though. (MIT and BSD for example)