4 ms·

What is a situation where liscensing your software as GPL is "questionable if not down right improper"? The entire point of the GPL is to spread the adoption o

What is a situation where liscensing your software as GPL is "questionable if not down right improper"? The entire point of the GPL is to spread the adoption of free as in freedom software. If you aren't willing to share your project with the community you are not allowed to use the community's work.

davismwfl 7y ago
I agree overall, nothing is wrong or improper with GPL if the product you are creating also complies with the same license terms. In the context I said questionable and improper is discussing commercial software. When I think of commercial software it is a non open source product being sold, licensed etc. Not that open source can't be commercialized but if you notice almost all companies run a dual license for their commercial vs open source software, e.g. QT, Mongo and others. They do this because it is the only way to monetize the software and not have every competitor have the same proprietary add ons they created and companies are willing to pay for. An example I dealt with a few years ago, I was working on an embedded project and the associated desktop software that the original developer utilized some GPL licensed open source libraries, compiled into the binaries (both embedded and desktop). When I did a license review and discussed it with the attorney it was deemed that GPL licensed components could not be included due to the licensing terms and the way that product was distributed along with the closed nature. In general I follow the rule, and have been told multiple times, that GPL (any version) with rare exception is not to be used in commercial software (including API's and server based products) unless you are strictly dynamically linking to the library. But if you are compiling it into your commercial product and especially if you are making alterations to it and compiling it in you are in violation of the license terms (and definitely the spirit of the license). Of course, if your product is open source, then that is a totally different story. Even more open licenses like Apache and MIT still have copyright notices you need to comply with at minimum, so all that has to be taken into consideration as it needs to be added to product manuals, about pages etc otherwise you are in technical violation of the terms. Hence, the license terms of any library should be a key consideration on whether you include it into your project.
- kyruzic 7y ago
  So someone you work with broke (or attempted to break? It's unclear whether the product you're referring to was released) the law by using GPL code in a closed source commercial product? This is done right improper (and illegal) for the developer who used the GPL software. Not the creator who choose the GPL likely to specifically prevent what you described. People tend to understand open source software as software that is free to use however you want. This is not what GPL software is though. It's entended to be an ecosystem of software that is open and free to use as long as you are also willing to share the software you create using the ecosystem.

davismwfl 7y ago

I agree overall, nothing is wrong or improper with GPL if the product you are creating also complies with the same license terms. In the context I said questionable and improper is discussing commercial software. When I think of commercial software it is a non open source product being sold, licensed etc. Not that open source can't be commercialized but if you notice almost all companies run a dual license for their commercial vs open source software, e.g. QT, Mongo and others. They do this because it is the only way to monetize the software and not have every competitor have the same proprietary add ons they created and companies are willing to pay for. An example I dealt with a few years ago, I was working on an embedded project and the associated desktop software that the original developer utilized some GPL licensed open source libraries, compiled into the binaries (both embedded and desktop). When I did a license review and discussed it with the attorney it was deemed that GPL licensed components could not be included due to the licensing terms and the way that product was distributed along with the closed nature. In general I follow the rule, and have been told multiple times, that GPL (any version) with rare exception is not to be used in commercial software (including API's and server based products) unless you are strictly dynamically linking to the library. But if you are compiling it into your commercial product and especially if you are making alterations to it and compiling it in you are in violation of the license terms (and definitely the spirit of the license). Of course, if your product is open source, then that is a totally different story. Even more open licenses like Apache and MIT still have copyright notices you need to comply with at minimum, so all that has to be taken into consideration as it needs to be added to product manuals, about pages etc otherwise you are in technical violation of the terms. Hence, the license terms of any library should be a key consideration on whether you include it into your project.

kyruzic 7y ago
So someone you work with broke (or attempted to break? It's unclear whether the product you're referring to was released) the law by using GPL code in a closed source commercial product? This is done right improper (and illegal) for the developer who used the GPL software. Not the creator who choose the GPL likely to specifically prevent what you described. People tend to understand open source software as software that is free to use however you want. This is not what GPL software is though. It's entended to be an ecosystem of software that is open and free to use as long as you are also willing to share the software you create using the ecosystem.