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HI Ravi,
There is a nice term describing how GPL works - "viral
effect". If you "touch" GPL you will be GPeLd to GPL yourself.
Unlike the flue ... there is not cure (-;
Best regards:
RAf
Dr. Rafal Wawer
K.U.Leuven
R&D Division SADL
(Spatial Application Division)
Celestijnenlaan 200e bus 2224
BE-3001
Leuven-Heverlee
Belgium
tel. 0032 16 329731
Hi All,
Adding to this discussion, there are a spectrum of
open source licenses measured in terms of what they allow to derivative works.
At one end of the spectrum, the GPL stipulates that if you base your software on
a component that is licensed with the GPL license *and* distribute it, that
derivative work must be licensed under the GPL license.
On the other end
of the spectrum, there are licenses that are very liberal in terms of what they
allow - BSD and MIT are good examples of this. Reusing a component licensed
under the BSD or MIT license does affect a derivative work.
In terms of
the GPL, distribution is a key. If you do not distribute your derivative work,
then it does not become GPL. An example of this would be strictly in-house use,
or developing a web based service. The exception, be aware there is a different
class of the GPL, the Affero GPL that applies in the case of web services. With
this license, you do not have to redistribute to trigger the "GPL contamination"
- building a web service is enough to do so.
There's a good video on what
you should look out for and relative merits of various licenses here:
http://www.fosslc.org/drupal/node/523
The 3 licenses discussed in this video are at opposite ends and roughly in the
middle of the above spectrum.
Andrew
2009/11/7 Yves Jacolin (free)
<[hidden email]>
Le samedi 07 novembre 2009, Ravi a écrit :
> How come ESRI uses GDAL too, does open source support
closed source too.
Hi,
It depends the OS Licence. GDAL
licence is BSD-Like [1].
Some other are usinng GPL-LIKe licence.
This kind of licence does not allow
closed source to user open source
licence. They need to "open" their source
using a GPL-Like licence
[2].
This is quiet complicated ;)
Y.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License
--
Yves
Jacolin
-------------
"Donner la liberté aux individus ne suffit pas, il
faut aussi leur donner du
pouvoir, de la puissance d'agir." M
Gauchet
"Give freedom to people is not enough, we also have to give
them the power
to use this freedom, to act". M
Gauchet
-------------
http://yjacolin.gloobe.org
http://softlibre.gloobe.org
--
Andrew
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