On Wednesday 26 April 2006 18:14, Hugo Schlebnik wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Not sure if I should send this to the devel list or this list, but here
> goes:
It is probably more of a question for the devel list, but I don't see any
point to change it now ...
First let me preface this by saying that I speak only for code which I have
copyrighted. There are other copyright holders of source code used in Bacula:
Microsoft, ATT, Free Software Foundation just to mention a few. I cannot
speak for them.
>
> I'm a bit confused about the different bacula components and their
> respective licenses. From what I can tell, the win32 binary has an
> extremely open and unrestrictive license, but most related components
> (including the recently added encryption plugin) appear to be GPL.
That's an interesting question because I'm not exactly what license covers the
Win32 binary (probably GPL) -- assuming you *really* mean the binary and not
the source. I'm not sure exactly why you say that the Win32 binary has an
extemely open and unrestrictive license. I have not intended it to be
different from any other component, except that we are subject to a few minor
restraints from Microsoft (see below). Oh, I just went and read the
License.txt that is installed on Win32, and it is clearly wrong. I think that
was just a dummy file that I forgot to fix :-(
Without giving it much thought, assuming that the Win32 binary is covered by
GPL version 2, I think that a binary can be pretty much used as is as long as
you don't modify it.
Now if you are talking about the source code that is used to build the Win32
binary, that is a different question. 99% of the code has the appropriate
license agreement at the top of it, and the gory (and important details) are
in the main directory in a file named LICENSE despite what License.txt may
say since License.txt was never meant to apply to the source code. I
generally use GPL version 2 (not just any version), but there are a number of
modifications that I have made, mostly to clarify certain points. I recently
added a modification that states that in the Win32 binary, we use certain
proprietary Windows code, with their permission, of course, and unlike GPLed
code we are not allowed to distribute the source for the Windows code, but it
is available on public Microsoft servers.
>
> Can the win32 client be embedded in a commercial application? Are there
> other issues with this that I'm missing?
The simple answer concerning using the binary is: yes. I'm not opposed to
Bacula being used in commercial applications. However, if you do use it, and
you modify the GPL'ed code (not all of which is mine), which probably applies
to the binary as well, you are required to make the modifications publicly
available or you are in violation of the license. The idea (at least my
idea) is not to restrict you, but to ensure that if you use the code, you
modify it, and you distribute/sell it that you give back to the project.
That said, I have tried to use the LGPL license on the parts of Bacula that
might be used in a commercial application that wants to interface to Bacula.
This is so that you can modify this LGPL code or use it "embedded" in your
code and you are not required to make your changes or your code publicly
available. If I've overlooked some interface code, just let me know.
>
> Many thanks for your advice or insight.
Thanks for pointing out the binary License.txt problem. I hope the above is
clear and doesn't discourage you from using Bacula.
--
Best regards,
Kern
(">
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