On Sunday 03 February 2002 03:31, Jacob Meuser wrote: > I think it's important to note that one may not charge a fee for > the software except for "the physical act of transferring a copy" or > "warranty protection" under the GPL or LGPL. �So "anyone can use it > however they like" is more than an oversimplification, it's wrong.
Right. You can't take a GPL'd item and simply sell the software. But, I believe, you can use GPL'd software as a functional component (i.e. apart from your work, but required to use your work) of something you create. You can GPL your work and still sell it for whatever you can and you continue to have the right to market your own work even if it relies on GPL'd libraries, utilities, etc. to function. Certainly you can put together a compilation of GPL'd software (e.g. a distribution) and sell the work of making it a functional whole for whatever you can. I'm not sure, but you may even be able to act as an "editor" and assemble "The Greatest GNU hits of the '80s" and sell that for an arbitrary price, but it better be cheap or you won't sell many. > > Closed Source - You've got what you've got, if we don't ever make a > > new release, that's it. > Also some licenses state that reverse engineering is forbidden. Good point. There's almost no end to the restrictions and requirements that can be placed on a customer. Scary. I also left out shrouded source and probably a few other variants on the theme. > If you're interested in software copyright, here's a link to OpenBSD's > take on the subject -> http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html Thanks for the link.
