1. Open Source software does not imply free usage. Many commercial companies sell there software in open source form, which simply means that the source code is open.
2. GPL Licensed Software is free for use but CANNOT be used in a commercial product.
3. Any software you write that uses GPL licensed software/code is automatically GPL software, they call this the Viral Aspect of GPL.
4. LGPL is different from GPL and stands for "Lesser GPL".
5. LGPL has the advantage that you can include LGPL software code inside your commercial product and also have it in its compiled form.
6. You must always provide GPL software in its open source form, if you do a project that uses GPL software, then your code should also stay open.
7. Apache License has nothing to do with the Apache Webserver, its just a license type that applies to software.
8. An Apache Licensed Software or Library can be used in a commercial product.
9. A BSD Licensed Software or Library can be used in a commercial product.
10. Although you can't use GPL software in a commercial product, but you can sell GPL software with any amount of money you want. As an example, I can now download a GPL software (eg. Kannel Gateway) and sell it to a company for $400'000, totally legal, totally 7alaal.
11. Some software companies provide software products as "Dual Licenses", this means two licenses and depends on the usage. For example, MySQL provides its database as GPL for internal use and provides a commercial license for commercial usage (that you have to pay for).
2 comments:
very useful really, I spent a lot of time trying to understand that. I think now I understand it but it still doesn't make sense :)
Really what's the point behind someone developing a software and put it online under GPL, people are using the software but noone is paying for him, and then someone else downloads this product and sells it for 400,000$ and pays nothing to the developer. How does that make sense?
But remember, if you sell it for $400'000 dollars, the customer should also be aware that this is not your product, not copyrighted for yourself, but rather a GPL product or solution.
You cant claim that its copyrighted to the company you work for, you cant claim that its yours, the customer should know that it is a GPL project.
For most cases, the customer is interested in the solution, something that will work, he's not really bothered about the technical components and licenses that make up his solution. In this case the solution provider (ie. IT Company) will skip informing the client about it.
But if the client asks, he should be informed clearly, actually, I'm not sure if the IT company is obliged to inform the client directly about the GPL components.
Il-muhim, the $400000 sell is still valid and legal.
All your GPL myths, wonders and rumours can be disambiguated at the following Official GPL FAQ link:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
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