Chris Hayes said: > The GPL can be a headache to figure out when it gets to complicated > situations. > My uneducated working conclusion is that the GPL prevents you from > selling GPL-ed code as is, or improved GPL-ed code. Selling GPL-ed > code, even if you improved it, is dead wrong. Even if you eventually > totally rewrote the code.
This a ABSOLUTELY FALSE. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html. In fact a major part of the FSF's (the authors of the GPL) budget comes from selling GNU, their Free, GPLed software. > The hazy bit comes when you use a free base and write your own code that > sits on top of the base. It cannot work without the base but it is a > package of files you wrote. The Nuke communities are still having the > odd discussion whether one can charge for a module when the system it > fits in is GPL-ed. Not at all. You can sell anything you write. (In fact anyone can sell any GPLed code!) /But/ you can only sell (or otherwise distribute) code that links to GPLed code under the terms of the GPL. The hazy bit comes when you want to distribute proprietary software that depends on copyleft (GPLed) software. This is where you should have a lawyer. > I think the most polite thing to do is to write the makers of PearDB and > ask their opinion. The nicest thing to do is to get negotiating, and > offer them a part of your sales. I think this depends very much on the developers. The GPL is non-exclusive, so the copyright holders can license their code to you under any terms they want. People who hold the philosophy the GPL stands for dear will likely be un-impressed by offers to take a cut of your sales to re-license to you. Additionally, "what they think about it" is rather less relevant than what the license(s) in question actually say. http://pear.php.net/manual/en/faq.licenses.php indicates to me that "Pear DB" is made up of a bunch of contributed modules, so you will have to make decisions based on the license of the modules in question. That page states that they recommend the PHP, BSD, or LGPL licenses. PHP and BSD are both permissive Free Software licenses. For our purposes that means that you can link proprietary programs to them. The LGPL is a strong copyleft Free Software license THAT ALLOWS LINKING of any software. (As an aside LGPL used to mean "Library GPL" for that reason, but has been changed to "Lesser GPL" because the GPL is perfectly appropriate for library use, but can't be used for libraries for use with proprietary (or GPL-incompatible Free) software.) That is to say that you can use any Pear DB modules that are under the PHP, BSD or LGPL licenses with a proprietary program; you're in the clear. > There are some pages on this subject to be found on the GPL site. Perhaps you mean the GNU site? > If all else fails you could sell your hours to get the code working, and > give the code for free, if needed under a distribution limitation or > encoded. Now you're talking ;-) -Peter -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
