{"id":"LGPL-3.0-or-later","title":"GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 or later","reviewed_on":"2026-09-22","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spdx/license-list-data/main/text/LGPL-3.0-or-later.txt","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"created","summary":"The record models the \"or later\" form of the Lesser GPL version 3. Its legal text is the same document that LGPL-3.0-only models, so the deontic model is that record statement for statement. What the identifier adds is the option section 6 gives the licensee to follow this version or any later version the Free Software Foundation publishes. The Lesser GPL is a set of additional permissions on top of GPL version 3, and the conditions for a Combined Work are quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses, as in the base record.","findings":[{"rubric":1,"severity":"info","field":"spdx:licenseId","description":"File name, record id, SPDX identifier and the local name of the IRI are all LGPL-3.0-or-later. The deprecated short form LGPL-3.0+ is carried as a dct:alternative so that a search for it reaches this record.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"major","field":"dalicc:variantOf","description":"The record copies LGPL-3.0-only statement for statement. What differs: the identifier, dct:title, dct:alternative, dalicc:orLaterVersionOption (true here, false there) and the pair dalicc:variantKind \"version-option\" with dalicc:variantOf dalicclib:LGPL-3.0-only. The foaf:logo of the base record is kept, because it is the logo of the same licence text.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":7,"severity":"major","field":"dalicc:orLaterVersionOption","description":"Section 6 is the clause the flag stands for: \"If the Library as you received it specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU Lesser General Public License \"or any later version\" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that published version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.\" cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType stays dalicc:perpetual, because the text limits neither.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"The head of the text says that \"This version of the GNU Lesser General Public License incorporates the terms and conditions of version 3 of the GNU General Public License, supplemented by the additional permissions listed below\", so the grant is the GPL version 3 grant: conveying verbatim copies (GPL section 4), conveying modified source versions (GPL section 5), conveying object code (GPL section 6) and charging for a copy (GPL section 4). The ten permissions of the base record follow from those sentences and are carried over unchanged.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:duty","description":"cc:ShareAlike is a duty of the licence itself, as in the base record, because the Lesser GPL keeps the GPL condition for the Library itself and only adds permissions for an Application that uses it. Attribution, notice and source-code duties hang on distribute, modify and derive, and dalicc:modificationNotice on modify and derive.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited and dalicc:promote is prohibited, both taken from LGPL-3.0-only. Section 2(b) does let a licensee convey a modified copy \"under the GNU GPL, with none of the additional permissions of this License applicable to that copy\", which is a limited relicensing right the prohibition does not show. The library cannot yet express weak against strong copyleft, which is recorded in docs/LICENSE_REVIEW.md, and this record is not the place to change it.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"info","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"The warranty disclaimer and the limitation of liability are the two clauses of GPL version 3 that the Lesser GPL incorporates, kept as separate literals; the fee sentence is dalicc:WarrantyOrLiabilityAcceptance; the conditions of section 4 (Combined Works) and section 5 (Combined Libraries) are quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses. All of them are byte for byte the literals of LGPL-3.0-only, because the text is the same document.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":2,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:target","description":"The asset collection carries dcmitype:Software, as in the base record. Section 0 defines \"The Library\" as a covered work governed by this License, other than an Application or a Combined Work.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":9,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The consistency check of app.services.composer, run with licensedata/dependencygraph/dg_default.ttl, reports 0 conflicts for this record.","action":"none"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"dalicc:reciprocityScope","description":"The distinguishing feature of this licence is how far the share-alike condition reaches, and the record does not say it. Section 4 lets a licensee \"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 and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications\", subject to the conditions the base record quotes. dalicc:reciprocityScope exists and could carry it as a short literal, for example \"the library, not an application that links to it\". Adding it here alone would break the rule that this record equals its base, so it is proposed for both records of the pair together.","action":"proposed","change":"dalicc:reciprocityScope \"the library, not an application that links to it\" ;\n"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"minor","field":"record","description":"The termination clause and the no-further-restrictions clause of GPL version 3, which this licence incorporates, could be modelled with terms that already exist: dalicc:terminatesOnBreach true, dalicc:curePeriod \"30 days\", dalicc:sublicenseSurvival true and a dalicc:addLimitation prohibition. They are proposed for the GPL version 3 records in the same way and belong to both records of this pair at once, not to this one alone.","action":"none"},{"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-option","variant_of":"LGPL-3.0-only","notes":"The Lesser GPL is the licence most often declared as LGPL-3.0+ by package managers. The record does not try to model the difference between weak and strong copyleft, which the library cannot express yet; it is the same model as its base, with the version option turned on."}