It's been a grey area in the GPL for years. What happens if I take a free open source component licensed under the GPL and "link" my application against it without modifying the sources? What happens if I link against a binary library on my system that I don't have the source code for but was provided by my OS vendor when I installed it? Technically that's a violation of the GPL since I didn't have access to the sources.
Anyways, that's why the LGPL was created, but it's about to change for the GPL as well and why I said so long as you've noted your software contains GPL'd sources, I guess I should've mentioned that if you do that you need to offer your users (at a cost if necessary) access to the sources. GPL v3 draft -- http://gplv3.fsf.org/draft -Evan On 3/28/06, Mark Winterhalder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 3/28/06, Evan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Don't forget that the GPL is a DISTRIBUTION license, not a USE > > license. You can integrate any GPL'd (or LGPL'd) component into your > > commercial application so long as you don't distribute your commercial > > application in source form, binary redistribution is fine so long as > > you make note that your software contains GPL'd sources. > > > > If in doubt, contact a lawyer. > > i'm not a lawyer, but afaik the opposite is true -- you *must* *not* > include GPL'd code in your app if it's not itself released under the > GPL. with LGPL'd code it's ok, it was made for library code that can > be used with other licenses. > that's why microsoft called the GPL a "viral" license. anything that > uses it has to be GPL. that is true even if you keep the GPL'd > software independent from yours and just include it in the > distribution, afaik. > > note that using a GPL'd compiler, like gcc or mtasc (or swfmill for > that matter, even if it's not a compiler), for closed-source apps is > ok. it only is a problem if you include them with your app, e.g. as a > library. > > so, again: if you use a class from osflash that is released under the > GPL in your app, your app must be GPL'd. if it's LGPL it's ok as long > as you make changes available, if it's BSD you can do whatever you > like. at least that's how i understand it. > > mark > > -- > http://snafoo.org/ > > _______________________________________________ > osflash mailing list > [email protected] > http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org > _______________________________________________ osflash mailing list [email protected] http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
