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Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethis zbxtnetinvalid> 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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Warp wrote:
> If you simply use the software itself, as an executable program, to do
> your job, that's ok.
This is all I'm intending to do. I want to run GPG so I don't have to
pay money for PGP.
> 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.
Yeah, software licencing can get "interesting" real quickly...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > If you simply use the software itself, as an executable program, to do
> > your job, that's ok.
> This is all I'm intending to do. I want to run GPG so I don't have to
> pay money for PGP.
I find your original question a bit strange, really. For instance, Linux
is GPL, yet demonstrably Linux is quite widely used in commercial settings
and for commercial purposes. There are even some companies which actually
sell Linux distros, even though it's GPL (Red Hat being a prominent example).
From this alone one should deduce that the GPL license certainly doesn't
forbid using GPL software for commercial purposes.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
>
> 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.
It's still legal, you just need to meet the requirements ;-).
> 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.
I'm actually not sure either how much you'll need to publish, but it's
still legal when you'll meet the requirements ;-).
-Aero
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Warp wrote:
> I find your original question a bit strange, really. For instance, Linux
> is GPL, yet demonstrably Linux is quite widely used in commercial settings
> and for commercial purposes. There are even some companies which actually
> sell Linux distros, even though it's GPL (Red Hat being a prominent example).
>
> From this alone one should deduce that the GPL license certainly doesn't
> forbid using GPL software for commercial purposes.
I wasn't aware which exact licence Linux uses. (Although arguably the
fact that they want people to call it "GNU/Linux" should have been a
giveaway...)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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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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Orchid XP v8 schrieb:
> 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?
Use *for* commercial work, i.e. as a tool (e.g. compiler) - definitely so.
Use *in* commercial work, i.e. as part of it (e.g. a library) - depends
on your business model: If you can GPL your work and still make money
with it, then yes. Otherwise - definitely no.
Then again, in case of the "Lesser GPL" (LGPL) - definitely yes.
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On Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:05:13 +0100, 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... :-)
GPL is about distribution, not about usage of the software. Its purpose
is to ensure that code released under the GPL that's modified isn't only
redistributed in binary form, but that the modifications to the GPL'ed
code are also made available under the GPL.
There's no prohibition on usage of the code nor is there a prohibition on
selling the software as a product or part of a product. But the source
code *must* be made available.
Jim
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On Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:41:23 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I wasn't aware which exact licence Linux uses.
Technically, it doesn't, though many distributions provide an EULA of
sorts. Each component can have its own copyright and license terms.
> (Although arguably the
> fact that they want people to call it "GNU/Linux" should have been a
> giveaway...)
Not really, GNU doesn't necessarily imply GPL (though it's certainly most
likely). Could be LGPL as well. But also most include Firefox or
Mozilla, which are MPL.
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:41:23 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>
>> I wasn't aware which exact licence Linux uses.
>
> Technically, it doesn't, though many distributions provide an EULA of
> sorts. Each component can have its own copyright and license terms.
Linux, as a *kernel*, of course has a license. It's the GPLv2.
A GNU/Linux operating system distribution, to use Stallman-compliant
terminology nitpicking, is a package of a lot of software that may each
have its own licensing.
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