In article <4a7d4dd9$1@news.povray.org>,
Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Eero Ahonen 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.
>
> Heh. That was easy... :-)

Hehe. Well, since people are not giving you an educational argument,
let's give it a try. I think the relevant parts here are (1)
motivation for the GPL, where

  [t]o protect your rights, we need to prevent others from denying you
  these rights or asking you to surrender the rights. Therefore, you
  have certain responsibilities if you distribute copies of the
  software, or if you modify it: responsibilities to respect the
  freedom of others.

which suggests that merely using the program, you don't have anything
to worry about; in fact, in ``basic permissions,'' we are told that

  [t]his License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run
  the unmodified Program. 

Good. But what is the output of the program and what are you going to
do with it? Careful there. Because

  [t]he output from running a covered work is covered by this License
  only if the output, given its content, constitutes a covered
  work. This License acknowledges your rights of fair use or other
  equivalent, as provided by copyright law.

So a calculator that outputs numbers gives you nothing to worry about
because numbers are uncoverable by federal law. But consider a covered
program that logs in to an ftp site and prints all the GPL covered
code that it finds there. Such output is covered, and it might take
over your proprietary plans if you mix them in a special way.

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