R e: 1 day gnu, whole life gnu?

P

Peter

If your program contain gnu code, it has to be gnu too. So if your
later version(commerical license) contain any code from previous
verion(gnu license), it has to be gnu too, right?

Deploy you program both under gnu and commerical is possible? even
can, it has to open source too, but you can charge it for money.

thanks
from Peter ([email protected])
 
M

Mark Murphy

Peter said:
If your program contain gnu code, it has to be gnu too.

This is FUD, often published by MS.

If this was true then no SW running on Linux could be under a commercial
license. Look around there are a number of applications that are.

So if your
later version(commerical license) contain any code from previous
verion(gnu license), it has to be gnu too, right?

NO, not from what I have read.
Deploy you program both under gnu and commerical is possible? even
can, it has to open source too, but you can charge it for money.

thanks
from Peter ([email protected])

IAMAL But from what I have read if your program contains gnu/GPL, you
can have the part you write under a commercial license. You just have to
make the portion under gnu available to everyone. So as an example if I
write an accounting application I can sell it under any license as long
as I give credit and distribute the GPL and source or a link to such for
JFreeChart if I choose to use it for charts.

Mark
 
E

Erwin Moller

Peter said:
If your program contain gnu code, it has to be gnu too. So if your
later version(commerical license) contain any code from previous
verion(gnu license), it has to be gnu too, right?

Deploy you program both under gnu and commerical is possible? even
can, it has to open source too, but you can charge it for money.

thanks
from Peter ([email protected])

Hi Peter,

Please read a few chapters here:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html


Regards,
Erwin Moller
 
J

John C. Bollinger

Peter said:
If your program contain gnu code, it has to be gnu too. So if your
later version(commerical license) contain any code from previous
verion(gnu license), it has to be gnu too, right?

It depends what you mean by "contains". If you have taken source code
from a program licensed to you under the GPL and incorporated it into
your program, and you distribute the program then you must _either_
license your program under the GPL _or_ obtain a new license to the
borrowed code that permits you to include it in your product without
GPLing the product. Such an alternative license may cost money where
the GPL-licensed software might not have.

Your program, on the other hand, can dynamically link to GPL'ed
libraries without being GPL 'ed itself. You can even distribute the
libraries with the program, so long as you license the libraries under
the GPL.

There are fine points, caveats, the LGPL, and other considerations, but
those are some of the main points. If you want to be as certain as
possible of being legal then you should consult an attorney.
Deploy you program both under gnu and commerical is possible? even
can, it has to open source too, but you can charge it for money.

Yes, it is possible, and it is done. Typically the commercial license
entitles licensees to support and/or other services that are not
provided (free) to those licensing the software under the GPL.


John Bollinger
(e-mail address removed)
 
R

Ray Ingles

This is FUD, often published by MS.

Well, no. If you take some GNU code and use it in your program, then
the entire program becomes covered by the GPL. You can do whatever you
want on your own box, but if you distribute the program you have to do
it on the GPL's terms. That's what allows you to copy the code in the
first place. (You can't just take copyrighted code and do whatever you
want with it, no matter whose code it is.)

However, there are ways around this. If you just link to the code in
a shared library, you're safe. See the GPL FAQ for details.
If this was true then no SW running on Linux could be under a commercial
license. Look around there are a number of applications that are.

No, code running *on* Linux doesn't have to 'contain' GPL'd code.
*That's* the FUD spread by MS. It's *copying* GPL code that puts a
program under the GPL, not simply being near it or working with it.
So if your

No. You hold the copyright to code you created. You are free to
release it under whatever license you want. If you remove or replace
the GPL code, you can release your code under whatever licence you
want.

Some programmers release code under both the GPL and BSD licenses.
As the authors, that's their right. You choose which restrictions to
abide by. Others offer both a GPL version and a commercial version
(Bitkeeper and Sendmail come to mind).

--
Sincerely,

Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317

"You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day,
no matter how rich you are." - Colonel Adolphus Busch
 
N

Nigel Wade

Ray said:
Well, no. If you take some GNU code and use it in your program, then
the entire program becomes covered by the GPL. You can do whatever you
want on your own box, but if you distribute the program you have to do
it on the GPL's terms. That's what allows you to copy the code in the
first place. (You can't just take copyrighted code and do whatever you
want with it, no matter whose code it is.)

However, there are ways around this. If you just link to the code in
a shared library, you're safe. See the GPL FAQ for details.

This is what the FAQ says:

"If a library is released under the GPL (not the LGPL), does that mean that
any program which uses it has to be under the GPL?

Yes, because the program as it is actually run includes the library."


And:

"If I port my program to GNU/Linux, does that mean I have to release it as
Free Software under the GPL or some other Free Software license?

In general, the answer is no--this is not a legal requirement. In
specific, the answer depends on which libraries you want to use and what
their licenses are. Most system libraries either use the GNU Lesser GPL, or
use the GNU GPL plus an exception permitting linking the library with
anything. These libraries can be used in non-free programs; but in the case
of the Lesser GPL, it does have some requirements you must follow.

Some libraries are released under the GNU GPL alone; you must use a
GPL-compatible license to use those libraries. But these are normally the
more specialized libraries, and you would not have had anything much like
them on another platform, so you probably won't find yourself wanting to
use these libraries for simple porting."

Which again quite explicitly states that using a GPL'd library requires a
GPL compatible license.


Which part of the GPL/FAQ do you think says it's ok to link against a GPL
library and not make your application GPL?
 
R

Ray Ingles

Which part of the GPL/FAQ do you think says it's ok to link against a GPL
library and not make your application GPL?

That was a mistake, you're right. I meant to refer to the LGPL in
that part.

--
Sincerely,

Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317

"There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the term
'intellectual property,' because information isn't transferred
between brains: it's copied." - Charles Stross
 
M

Mark Murphy

Ray said:
Well, no. If you take some GNU code and use it in your program, then
the entire program becomes covered by the GPL. You can do whatever you
want on your own box, but if you distribute the program you have to do
it on the GPL's terms. That's what allows you to copy the code in the
first place. (You can't just take copyrighted code and do whatever you
want with it, no matter whose code it is.)

That's what I wanted to say but did it poorly, sorry if it did not come
out right. Using GPL Librarys does not mean that your code must be GPL,
but it does mean that you have follow disclosure responsibilities within
the GPL for the Libraries. I always think of using GPL libraries and
would never think of actually taking someones else code and coping it
into mine, but that's just me. So maybe I was not clear.

No, code running *on* Linux doesn't have to 'contain' GPL'd code.
*That's* the FUD spread by MS. It's *copying* GPL code that puts a
program under the GPL, not simply being near it or working with it.
My point here is just like your statement above. A good number of
applications on Linux need to use GPL code in Libraries, but as long as
they follow the GPL for the librarys they can still sell THEIR code
under their License.

Mark
 
J

John C. Bollinger

Nigel said:
This is what the FAQ says:

"If a library is released under the GPL (not the LGPL), does that mean that
any program which uses it has to be under the GPL?

Yes, because the program as it is actually run includes the library."

That is FSF's position, but I find it extraordinary. IANAL, but I
observe this from paragraph 0 of the terms and conditions of the GPL
version 2: "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification
are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope." (That is,
copying, distributing, or modifying the GPLed program or library.) In
particular, the GPL explicitly does not address executing programs to
which it applies. The GPL is based on copyright, so I think arguments
which do not center on program source or object code (the entities that
are actually copied, modified, and or distributed) are tenuous at best.


John Bollinger
(e-mail address removed)
 
F

Francis Litterio

John said:
That is FSF's position, but I find it extraordinary. IANAL, but I observe this
from paragraph 0 of the terms and conditions of the GPL version 2: "Activities
other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this
License; they are outside its scope." (That is, copying, distributing, or
modifying the GPLed program or library.) In particular, the GPL explicitly does
not address executing programs to which it applies. The GPL is based on
copyright, so I think arguments which do not center on program source or object
code (the entities that are actually copied, modified, and or distributed) are
tenuous at best.

But to execute a GPL'ed binary, it must be copied (page by page) from
persistent storage to RAM (and then again from RAM into the cache and
into the CPU). Granted, the copy is made _by_ your computer, but it is
the result of a command given directly or indirectly by you.
 
J

John C. Bollinger

Francis said:
John C. Bollinger wrote:


But to execute a GPL'ed binary, it must be copied (page by page) from
persistent storage to RAM (and then again from RAM into the cache and
into the CPU). Granted, the copy is made _by_ your computer, but it is
the result of a command given directly or indirectly by you.

A judge might buy that, but I wouldn't want to bet my business model on
it. Or against it. That's why I advised consulting an attorney.


John Bollinger
(e-mail address removed)
 
C

Chris Smith

John C. Bollinger said:
That is FSF's position, but I find it extraordinary.

I also find it interesting that this hasn't always been the FSF's
position. At some point, at about the same time that the LGPL was
renamed from the "Library GPL" to the "Lesser GPL", someone also scoured
over the FSF web site and removed all occurrences of the words which
used to be there, which essentially said this: the FSF doesn't think
that the GPL prevents linking a library from commercial code, but we are
providing the LGPL just to pacify certain people who are concerned about
the GPL wording.

I fear that this change of position came, not from any actual change to
the best available legal interpretations of the GPL, but rather from
wishful thinking on the part of subscribers to certain ideologies who
want to change history and pretend that the GPL has always meant
something different. Two perspectives in particular support that
change: the FSF position, that as much software should be forced under
free software licenses as possible; and the MySQL position, that someone
ought to be able to sell commercial software and still get good press
for distributing it under the GPL.

The real problem here is not that the meaning of the license has
effectively changed for new authors who deliberately choose it -- they
can do what they like, although I still find it sneaky that the FSF
built up popularity under one license, and then quietly misappropriated
that public support in favor of completely different licensing terms.
However, the real problem that a huge heap of code that was written and
released under certain conditions by free software authors for the past
several decades now de facto has had certain restrictions applied to it
which were never intended by the original author. I include in that
category certain software that I've written myself, and for which I no
longer have the ability to contact all contributors and obtain approval
for a release under a different license.

Of course, in a court of law, it's the words of the license that matter;
but in the real world, given the absence of case law regarding the GPL,
the FSF is quite a powerful force in scaring people out of using
software that they might otherwise use.

As you can tell, I'm more than a little bitter about this whole thing.

--
www.designacourse.com
The Easiest Way To Train Anyone... Anywhere.

Chris Smith - Lead Software Developer/Technical Trainer
MindIQ Corporation
 
C

cmk128

John said:
It depends what you mean by "contains". If you have taken source code
from a program licensed to you under the GPL and incorporated it into
your program, and you distribute the program then you must _either_
license your program under the GPL _or_ obtain a new license to the
borrowed code that permits you to include it in your product without
GPLing the product. Such an alternative license may cost money where
the GPL-licensed software might not have.

Your program, on the other hand, can dynamically link to GPL'ed
libraries without being GPL 'ed itself. You can even distribute the
libraries with the program, so long as you license the libraries under
the GPL.

There are fine points, caveats, the LGPL, and other considerations, but
those are some of the main points. If you want to be as certain as
possible of being legal then you should consult an attorney.


Yes, it is possible, and it is done. Typically the commercial license
entitles licensees to support and/or other services that are not
provided (free) to those licensing the software under the GPL.


John Bollinger
(e-mail address removed)

Yes, If your source code contain gnu code, it has to be gnu too. but
link to a gnu library is ok.
JFreeReport is dploy under LGPL license, so if your software use it,
you still can deploy it under commerical license. But JFreeReport
contain some GNU modules, so how can it be LGPL?
thanks
from Peter ([email protected])
 
P

Peter

Ray Ingles said:
Well, no. If you take some GNU code and use it in your program, then
the entire program becomes covered by the GPL. You can do whatever you
want on your own box, but if you distribute the program you have to do
it on the GPL's terms. That's what allows you to copy the code in the
first place. (You can't just take copyrighted code and do whatever you
want with it, no matter whose code it is.)

However, there are ways around this. If you just link to the code in
a shared library, you're safe. See the GPL FAQ for details.


No, code running *on* Linux doesn't have to 'contain' GPL'd code.
*That's* the FUD spread by MS. It's *copying* GPL code that puts a
program under the GPL, not simply being near it or working with it.


No. You hold the copyright to code you created. You are free to
release it under whatever license you want. If you remove or replace
the GPL code, you can release your code under whatever licence you
want.

Some programmers release code under both the GPL and BSD licenses.
As the authors, that's their right. You choose which restrictions to
abide by. Others offer both a GPL version and a commercial version
(Bitkeeper and Sendmail come to mind).

--
Sincerely,

Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317

"You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day,
no matter how rich you are." - Colonel Adolphus Busch

Yes, you are right, changing a license from GNU to commerical, you have to
remove all the GNU code first.
 
N

Nigel Wade

John said:
That is FSF's position, but I find it extraordinary. IANAL, but I
observe this from paragraph 0 of the terms and conditions of the GPL
version 2: "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification
are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope." (That is,
copying, distributing, or modifying the GPLed program or library.) In
particular, the GPL explicitly does not address executing programs to
which it applies. The GPL is based on copyright, so I think arguments
which do not center on program source or object code (the entities that
are actually copied, modified, and or distributed) are tenuous at best.

Yes, but the issue is not how *you* (the developer) uses the GLP'd library.
The issue is under what licence you distribute your application which uses
the GPL'd library. The FSF position is quite clear on this, if you link to
a GPL'd library then you must distribute the application under the GPL.

As with all license agreements, they are what the licensee would *like* to
be the legal situation, not what is actually legal. The only way to
determine the actual legality is to put a case before a judge. Even
consulting an attourney won't necessarily get you the right answer, but at
least it might give you legal/financial redress if they give you the wrong
advice.
 
J

John C. Bollinger

Nigel said:
Yes, but the issue is not how *you* (the developer) uses the GLP'd library.
The issue is under what licence you distribute your application which uses
the GPL'd library. The FSF position is quite clear on this, if you link to
a GPL'd library then you must distribute the application under the GPL.

Yes, the FSF's position is clear, but it is not law. As I observed, it
is not the only reasonable interpretation of GPL terms, and in my own
opinion it is less reasonable than the alternative. But my opinion
doesn't matter unless I'm the licensor.

As Chris Smith pointed out, the FSF does exert considerable extralegal
influence in this area, but that notwithstanding, legally they are in
the same boat with all other "free" software producers and consumers.
As with all license agreements, they are what the licensee would *like* to
be the legal situation, not what is actually legal. The only way to
determine the actual legality is to put a case before a judge. Even
consulting an attourney won't necessarily get you the right answer, but at
least it might give you legal/financial redress if they give you the wrong
advice.

Clearly we agree about that.


John Bollinger
(e-mail address removed)
 
C

Chris Smith

Francis Litterio said:
But to execute a GPL'ed binary, it must be copied (page by page) from
persistent storage to RAM (and then again from RAM into the cache and
into the CPU). Granted, the copy is made _by_ your computer, but it is
the result of a command given directly or indirectly by you.

So the end-user is restricted by the GPL? That doesn't really work.
The GPL covers the distribution of copies of a work. IANAL, but making
a temporary copy of a work, for temporary use, that is subsequently
discarded, does not fall askew of copyright law even if you posess no
license whatsoever. Or do you mean that the developer is liable for the
copying actions of the end-user?

Now here's the whole storyt. The reason that there is ambiguity about
the GPL applying to programs that link to a GPLed library is this. The
linking process has historically involved the compiler making use of
some information from the library. In C, certain declarations of data
structures, functions, constants, etc. are even textually included into
the program via the preprocessor #include directive. Linkers also make
use of information from the binary form of the library when building the
executable.

In Java, this phenomenon is less obvious. The Java compiler does
include the values of compile-time constants in other classes, however,
when compiling against them. It also still makes use of certain
information in the library code to determine the meaning of application
code; for example, it data will be converted from an int to a double
automatically if a method is declared with a double parameter.

Interestingly, in Java, it's quite possible to work around that problem
by using (or building) a generic interface to a piece of functionality,
and then plugging in an implementation at runtime. However, because
people have gotten used to the idea that the GPL means what certain
influential people (particularly Richard Stallman) would like it to
mean, we end up with weird situations like MySQL, where the MySQL AB
informed me once that if I distribute an application that gets its JDBC
driver from a config file, and some customer of mine uses it with MySQL,
then they feel that they could sue me over the issue. They appear to be
(1) making the same mistake that Francis made above, confusing
distribution with use; and (2) assuming that the GPL applies, even when
none of their code has made its way into my source or object code. How
could I violate their license agreement when I don't even have a copy of
any of their code on any of the machines I use for development?

--
www.designacourse.com
The Easiest Way To Train Anyone... Anywhere.

Chris Smith - Lead Software Developer/Technical Trainer
MindIQ Corporation
 

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