4 ms·

The GPL is a complex license so here are some rules of thumb when using the GPL: you can charge as much as you want for distributing, supporting, or documentin

by naner 15y ago

The GPL is a complex license so here are some rules of thumb when using the GPL: you can charge as much as you want for distributing, supporting, or documenting the software, but you cannot sell the software itself. I don't believe this is correct. You can sell the software.

ams6110 15y ago
Yes I think you can sell the software but you must make the source available. I'm not sure how this is different from charging for distribution, from a practical standpoint.
- dwrowe 15y ago
  Make the source available to the purchaser, not necessarily public I think, right?
  - kenneth_reitz 15y ago
    Correct, unless someone asks for it, I believe.
  - pessimizer 15y ago
    I think to anyone who requests it, within a reasonable period of time, for at most a reasonable fee to cover your expenses for sending it to them IIRC.
  - chousuke 15y ago
    IANAL, but my understanding is that anyone who obtains a GPL'd binary is entitled to receive the source as well, from the source that provided them with the binary. If you are careful with who you distribute the binary to, you could in theory keep the source sort of "secret", though I don't think it's a good general approach to GPL software.
    - mkup 15y ago
      And after receiving that "secret" source the customer can just upload it to its website and give away to the world for free.
  - mjg59 15y ago
    For GPLv2, it depends. If you distribute the source with the binary, you don't need to give the source to third parties. If you provide a written offer for the source, that offer must be good for all third parties whether they've received the binaries or not.
- dwrowe 15y ago
  Make the source available to the purchaser, not necessarily public I think, right?
kenneth_reitz 15y ago
You can sell the software, but it must remain open source. Of course, GPL can also be conjoined with any other license. Your project can be offered as GPL + Commercial$$. It's an elegant solution for many projects: Highcharts, extjs, mysql, neo4j...
pessimizer 15y ago
You can't sell the software in the sense that you can't sell the permission to use the software. Somebody can use the software if it was distributed to them by someone who you distributed it to, for example.
kijin 15y ago
I think the writer is defining "sell" as "give somebody an exclusive right to use it" or "allow people to use it only if they agree to your terms". After all, that's what it usually means to sell proprietary software. Since any program that contains GPL code must be open-sourced, it's impossible to grant anybody a right to use it at the exclusion of everybody else, or to prevent people from using it against your will. A very poor choice of wording, though.
paulhauggis 15y ago
right. You can sell it, but don't expect to keep selling it as a long term business. Why? Anyone that purchases a single copy can re-compile and re-release to the world for free. In addition to this, anyone can share it for free and it's allowed by the license. If your app has any popularity it all, you will slowly lose your customer base because it's too easy to generate free competition (you will essentially with an exact duplicate of your software for free, and it's legal), unless of course you want to become a support company. Support might work for larger companies, but doesn't scale well at all for a one-man shop. It's quite obvious to me that Stallman doesn't want you to be able to charge for software, due to the very nature of the license. He has said when questioned that support is a viable way to make money from "free software". I don't know about you, but I don't want to run a support company.
- makecheck 15y ago
  It's true that a 3rd party may not charge what you'd charge and your income may decrease, but your costs would also decrease somewhat. If another site hosts your software too, that's less potential load on your download servers to handle the actual number of users. With some hosting providers, this directly reduces the amount of money you spend on web hosting (whenever less bandwidth is consumed). And even if a 3rd party hosts your software, they can't just take away your copyright and claim that they wrote the software themselves. The software remains associated with you so the 3rd party's hosting provides a bit of free advertising. Maybe you didn't spend money on advertising, but some people do; and you could arguably spend less if enough 3rd party sites make it known that your project exists. This probably doesn't amount to much but my point is that 3rd parties aren't creating complete freebies; their actions do help a little.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  > Anyone that purchases a single copy can re-compile and re-release to the world for free. I have licensed a lot of custom-built software under the GPL (because I used GPL'ed bits and pieces). None of my clients ever redistributed their software, most likely because they considered it a competitive advantage. Think about it for a moment and you'll realize it's not a big problem. For me, it's an advantage, because I could reuse the code I did in other projects, something I wouldn't be able to do if I didn't license the code under the GPL in the first place. > Stallman doesn't want you to be able to charge for software No. What he doesn't want is that programmers are able to restrict freedoms of their users. BSD allows that. GPL forbids that. In other words, he fights for the users. ;-)
drcube 15y ago
"Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on." http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
buff-a 15y ago
More correctly, "you cannot sell just the software by itself" because as soon as you transfer the software, the receiver also gets the right to demand of you the source code.

by naner 15y ago

ams6110 15y ago

Yes I think you can sell the software but you must make the source available. I'm not sure how this is different from charging for distribution, from a practical standpoint.

dwrowe 15y ago
Make the source available to the purchaser, not necessarily public I think, right?
- kenneth_reitz 15y ago
  Correct, unless someone asks for it, I believe.
- pessimizer 15y ago
  I think to anyone who requests it, within a reasonable period of time, for at most a reasonable fee to cover your expenses for sending it to them IIRC.
- chousuke 15y ago
  IANAL, but my understanding is that anyone who obtains a GPL'd binary is entitled to receive the source as well, from the source that provided them with the binary. If you are careful with who you distribute the binary to, you could in theory keep the source sort of "secret", though I don't think it's a good general approach to GPL software.
  - mkup 15y ago
    And after receiving that "secret" source the customer can just upload it to its website and give away to the world for free.
- mjg59 15y ago
  For GPLv2, it depends. If you distribute the source with the binary, you don't need to give the source to third parties. If you provide a written offer for the source, that offer must be good for all third parties whether they've received the binaries or not.
dwrowe 15y ago
Make the source available to the purchaser, not necessarily public I think, right?

kenneth_reitz 15y ago

You can sell the software, but it must remain open source. Of course, GPL can also be conjoined with any other license. Your project can be offered as GPL + Commercial$$. It's an elegant solution for many projects: Highcharts, extjs, mysql, neo4j...

pessimizer 15y ago

You can't sell the software in the sense that you can't sell the permission to use the software. Somebody can use the software if it was distributed to them by someone who you distributed it to, for example.

kijin 15y ago

I think the writer is defining "sell" as "give somebody an exclusive right to use it" or "allow people to use it only if they agree to your terms". After all, that's what it usually means to sell proprietary software. Since any program that contains GPL code must be open-sourced, it's impossible to grant anybody a right to use it at the exclusion of everybody else, or to prevent people from using it against your will. A very poor choice of wording, though.

paulhauggis 15y ago

right. You can sell it, but don't expect to keep selling it as a long term business. Why? Anyone that purchases a single copy can re-compile and re-release to the world for free. In addition to this, anyone can share it for free and it's allowed by the license. If your app has any popularity it all, you will slowly lose your customer base because it's too easy to generate free competition (you will essentially with an exact duplicate of your software for free, and it's legal), unless of course you want to become a support company. Support might work for larger companies, but doesn't scale well at all for a one-man shop. It's quite obvious to me that Stallman doesn't want you to be able to charge for software, due to the very nature of the license. He has said when questioned that support is a viable way to make money from "free software". I don't know about you, but I don't want to run a support company.

makecheck 15y ago
It's true that a 3rd party may not charge what you'd charge and your income may decrease, but your costs would also decrease somewhat. If another site hosts your software too, that's less potential load on your download servers to handle the actual number of users. With some hosting providers, this directly reduces the amount of money you spend on web hosting (whenever less bandwidth is consumed). And even if a 3rd party hosts your software, they can't just take away your copyright and claim that they wrote the software themselves. The software remains associated with you so the 3rd party's hosting provides a bit of free advertising. Maybe you didn't spend money on advertising, but some people do; and you could arguably spend less if enough 3rd party sites make it known that your project exists. This probably doesn't amount to much but my point is that 3rd parties aren't creating complete freebies; their actions do help a little.
rbanffy 15y ago
> Anyone that purchases a single copy can re-compile and re-release to the world for free. I have licensed a lot of custom-built software under the GPL (because I used GPL'ed bits and pieces). None of my clients ever redistributed their software, most likely because they considered it a competitive advantage. Think about it for a moment and you'll realize it's not a big problem. For me, it's an advantage, because I could reuse the code I did in other projects, something I wouldn't be able to do if I didn't license the code under the GPL in the first place. > Stallman doesn't want you to be able to charge for software No. What he doesn't want is that programmers are able to restrict freedoms of their users. BSD allows that. GPL forbids that. In other words, he fights for the users. ;-)

drcube 15y ago

"Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on." http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

buff-a 15y ago

More correctly, "you cannot sell just the software by itself" because as soon as you transfer the software, the receiver also gets the right to demand of you the source code.