On Sun, 26 Oct 2003, Tal, Shachar wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a GPL licensing question that came from a customer of mine:
>
> That customer is currently developing a distributed client-server, where the
> communication protocols between clients and servers are non-standard (i.e.
> not HTTP or likes of it). The customer wishes to include somewhat-modified
> GPLed software components in its client software (e.g. python, GTK or
> LAM/MPICH),
Gtk is not GPLed, but LGPLed. As such it has fewer of the GPL
restrictions. Python has its own license which again does not force to
release binaries linked against its libraries under a GPL-compatible
license.
> while keeping his server implementation, protocol implementation
> and part of client code proprietary, in order to actually make money off the
> software.
>
If a client is written in C and links against a GPLed C library, then all
of its code must be released under a GPL-compatible license.
GPL-compatible licenses are a subset of free software licenses, which are
themselves subsets of open-source licenses. In any case, they are not
proprietary.
Note that a GPLed interpreter can run a non-GPL-compatible script.
IANAL, so all legal caveats apply.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Writing a BitKeeper replacement is probably easier at this point than getting
its license changed.
Matt Mackall on OFTC.net #offtopic.
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