By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are
communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs.
So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are
separate programs. But if the semantics of the communication are
intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too
could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger
program.
I think this is a bit silly though, the line has to be drawn somewhere. Maybe if you are loading shares libraries via NFS and linking them it's one thing.. but "exchanging internal data structures" ?
I am not sure that the line can be drawn. If copyright law were to clearly define a technical method that would prevent one item from being a derivative work of another, then I could easily circumvent copyright just by applying that method.
Then GAIM is part of AOL's server, and thus probably violating AOL's copyright, and Samba, etc.
...and these are some arguments against the idea.
This is why we make the intent of our licensing very clear. If you are proprietary, we recommend a commercial license. If you are GPL or Open Source, use the GPL license.
On the other hand, I think most companies are happy to pay for the support, regardless of whether the software itself is free or not.
In my experience, many companies do not buy support. Additionally, surviving solely on support can be a challenging model for a company that develops software. Surprisingly, answering customer support questions does little to help the software get developed. :)
Our
company in particular would have signed up for support from SAP had it not
been an all or nothing proposition - but once we have to pay for the
software too, the idea is.. why not just use Oracle? (We are still
deciding if we will upgrade our SAPdb 7.3 to maxdb or to something
commercial like Oracle when it comes time...)
MaxDB is a commercial database. It just also happens to be available under a license that allows you to use it for free, as long as you are prepared to share your code that is based on the database. This combination of licenses gives you the freedom to view, alter, audit and learn from the MaxDB source code.
As for using or not using Oracle, I suspect that price is a key differentiator for many. :)
Cheers! --zak
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