On Fri, 18 May 2007, Ric Moore wrote:
On Fri, 2007-05-18 at 12:52 +0930, Tim wrote:
On Thu, 2007-05-17 at 17:38 -0700, Les wrote:
One thing I am still not clear about.... If someone (like me)
creates some whooptidoo program that does something wonderful, can
he/she sell that program commercially? Or is that code automatically
under GPL because it is designed on Linux?
Isn't that two issues? You can sell what you create, but GPL licensing
and conditions go along for the ride.
My take on it all is that what is created under the GPL is freely given
away, but you are certainly free to charge whatever the market will bear
to hire your expertise in utilizing your program. Certainly if it is the
Next Thing, does extremely useful stuff and gives value, you will find
your services in demand. For a lot of folks, having successfully sired
an Open Source project is the fast-track to a great job with plenty of
perks. Having a regular paycheck is no small thing.
There is *nothing anywhere* that requires you to license software you
create using Linux or the GNU toolchain under the GPL. Whether your work
inherits the GPL depends entirely on whether it is a "derived work" of a
GPL program. The GPL has a fairly (some would say overly, some would say
unenforcably) broad definition of "derived work", but the simple act of
creating your program using Linux or the GNU the toolchain does not fall
under that definition.
What libraries you link to has an impact. But the standard
system/language libraries generally do not enforce the GPL on code that
links to them, either because of the execption in the GPL for the case
where alternative libraries with the same functionality exist or because
of explicit exceptions in their licenses.
The point of the LGPL is that it explicitly does not impose licensing
conditions on code that links to LGPL libraries simply by virtue of
linking to them. The GPL does impose such conditions, but there are
exceptions.
There is no requirement in the GPL that you give away your work. There
*is* a requirement that you allow others who receive your work to have
access to the source and to redistribute it. In many cases (but not all),
that may drive the price of the software itself toward zero. But
there are many ways to make money on software other than selling licenses
to use the executable itself.
HTH. Of course, IANAL.
Becoming renown ...priceless. :) Ric
--
Matthew Saltzman
Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs
