License? GPL vs LGPL.

[Daniel Carrera]

Hello,

I am an OpenOffice.org volunteer.  Recently I have been thinking about the 
digital rights management features that Microsoft has included in the new 
MS Office 2003.  It's very worrysome.  Here is one relevant article:

http://www.linuxinsider.com/perl/story/32065.html


It seems that these features will cause a much greater degree of vendor 
lock-in and Free/Libre OSS lock-out than before.

I occurred to me that we could mitigate this problem somewhat if 
OpenOffice could address some of the problems that DRM is supposed to 
solve, but without trapping people.

Some of the features that DRM is meant to bring is authentication, and the 
ability to select exactly who can read the document.  These are things 
that GPG can do far more securely than anything MS is likely to cookup.

Now, here is the problem:  OOo is LGPL/SISSL.  I understand that this 
makes it incompatible with a GPL library.  If it were up to me, I'd 
make OOo GPL.  But it's not up to me.

Can anyone confirm that a LGPL application cannot use a GPL library?
If so, how would people feel about releasing either the GNU crypto library 
or GPGME under the LGPL?
Can anyone see a way out of this dilema?


Important note:  I am not a developer.  I am actually in the QA team and 
I'm running a project to write a Starter's guide.  Though I'm quite active 
in the community, I wouldn't be the one coding anything.  I am merely 
exploring alternatives for a perceived problem.


Thank you for your time.

Cheers,
-- 
Daniel Carrera |   Aleph-0 bottles of beer on the wall, Aleph-0 bottles
PhD student.   |   of beer.  Take one down, pass it around, Aleph-0
Math Dept.     |   bottles of beer on he wall...
UMD,           | http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Aleph-0.html