POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : A simple question of GPL : Re: A simple question of GPL Server Time
5 Sep 2024 09:22:20 EDT (-0400)
  Re: A simple question of GPL  
From: Warp
Date: 8 Aug 2009 07:01:35
Message: <4a7d5b0f@news.povray.org>
Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> > OK, so I have some software released under the GPL, and I don't feel
> > like reading through 250 pages of dense legalese. So can anybody tell
> > me... is it legal to use such software for commercial work?
> > 

> Yes.

  Although you should be careful on *how* you use it for commercial work.

  If you simply use the software itself, as an executable program, to do
your job, that's ok. (As an example: If you use Emacs, which is GPL, to
write your emails or programs as part of your payjob, that's naturally ok.)
However, there are other uses which are more restricted. For example, if
you embed the *sources* of the program into your own commercial program,
you'll have to publish your commercial program under the GPL.

  There are also other possible uses for which it's not completely clear to
me what the license demands. For example, if you make your commercial program
to call the GPL program externally, and you distribute this whole thing as one
software package, I'm not exactly sure what the licensing limitations are in
this case.

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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