License Question

Hi

I know, this might be the wrong place for such a question, but maybe
you can redirect me to the right place to post.

I wrote a small software under the GNU General Public License and put
it on freshmeat.net for download. Now, someone likes this software and
wants it to integrate into his own software as a module. This software
is for sale. Is there a meaningfull solution about this issue? I just
would like to give a "common" answer instead of a exotic one.

thanks to all, Stefan

Under the GNU GPL, he need only acknowledge your contribution, unless
you have otherwise attached some cost to it.

On 1 Dec 2004 03:56:08 -0800, g000ze@gmx.net (gooze) wrote:

>Hi
>
>I know, this might be the wrong place for such a question, but maybe
>you can redirect me to the right place to post.
>
>I wrote a small software under the GNU General Public License and put
>it on freshmeat.net for download. Now, someone likes this software and
>wants it to integrate into his own software as a module. This software
>is for sale. Is there a meaningfull solution about this issue? I just
>would like to give a "common" answer instead of a exotic one.
>
>thanks to all, Stefan


Ciao,


Ginzo
---------------------------------
War is god's way of teaching
Americans geography
-- Ambrose Bierce
---------------------------------

On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 08:02:56 -0500, Ginzo <sumpn@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Under the GNU GPL, he need only acknowledge your contribution, unless
>you have otherwise attached some cost to it.
>

I'm probably way off here, but I was under the impression that
derivatives of GPL licenced code has also to be Open Source. Is that
the case?

C

gooze wrote:

> I wrote a small software under the GNU General Public License and put
> it on freshmeat.net for download. Now, someone likes this software and
> wants it to integrate into his own software as a module. This software
> is for sale. Is there a meaningfull solution about this issue? I just
> would like to give a "common" answer instead of a exotic one.

Well, couldn't you just re-lisence it to this person under a comercial
lisence?

--
Tommy

Hi,

I think a work derived from a GNU/GPL licensed work must be under the same
license.
Quoted from the GNU GPL license v.2 (section 3, paragraph a):

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange;

Read there : http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt
--
M. Rambil
--
---------------------------
Mohamed Rambil
Service technique @GP
tél. : 04 75 60 58 81
"[-= Chris =-]" <Chris.Stephens@nez.oc.ku> a écrit dans le message de news:
fegrq0tt6f2t0qalfi6mh3s217je16sgu3@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 08:02:56 -0500, Ginzo <sumpn@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Under the GNU GPL, he need only acknowledge your contribution, unless
> >you have otherwise attached some cost to it.
> >
>
> I'm probably way off here, but I was under the impression that
> derivatives of GPL licenced code has also to be Open Source. Is that
> the case?
>
> C
>

gooze wrote:
> I wrote a small software under the GNU General Public License and
> put
> it on freshmeat.net for download. Now, someone likes this software
> and
> wants it to integrate into his own software as a module. This
> software
> is for sale. Is there a meaningfull solution about this issue?

"Software is for sale" means nothing in this context.[1] If his
software is licensed under GPL (or similar), there is no problem. In
that case he can use your code. On the other hand, if his code is not
under such license, he can not use your code unless you grant another
sort of license for him. However, I'm not entirely certain if this can
be done when your software is already under GPL (in other words, I
don't know if it's possible to license it under some license that's
not compatible with GPL).

[1] Since one *can* charge for GPL'ed software. This possibility is of
course mainly fictional due to the nature of open source code, but
still - it's not impossible to sell GPL'ed software; there are plenty
of examples :)

--
Markku Uttula

Markku Uttula wrote:

> gooze wrote:
>> I wrote a small software under the GNU General Public License and
>> put
>> it on freshmeat.net for download. Now, someone likes this software
>> and
>> wants it to integrate into his own software as a module. This
>> software
>> is for sale. Is there a meaningfull solution about this issue?
>
> "Software is for sale" means nothing in this context.[1] If his
> software is licensed under GPL (or similar), there is no problem. In
> that case he can use your code. On the other hand, if his code is not
> under such license, he can not use your code unless you grant another
> sort of license for him. However, I'm not entirely certain if this can
> be done when your software is already under GPL (in other words, I
> don't know if it's possible to license it under some license that's
> not compatible with GPL).
>

The issue is whether it constitutes a derived work. The LGPL was created to
allow the 'FOSS' part to be licenced seperately from the commericial part
of an application (since GPL does not allow for this). At the end of the
day it's probably cheaper for the publisher to purchase a licence (or the
rights to your software) from you than to get a lawyer to establish that it
is not a derivative work or pay a programmer to reverse engineer the code
and reimplement it.

HTH

C.

Hi Stefan,

I'm not sure if you feel your question has been answered, but here is the
long and the short of things: if someone wants to integrate your project
into their commercial product, then you need to offer it to them under the
terms of a commercial license.

So, here's what you do: you go to them and say "I'll sell this to you for
{your price}".

They can't just use your product under the GPL, unless they also release
their product under the GPL. If it's a commercial product, they probably
don't want to do this, because it means that they can't prevent people from
redistributing it for free (i.e., what would normally be called pirating the
software).

Sincerely,
-Josh
"gooze" <g000ze@gmx.net> wrote in message
news:e09c7315.0412010356.6245b53b@posting.google.c om...
> Hi
>
> I know, this might be the wrong place for such a question, but maybe
> you can redirect me to the right place to post.
>
> I wrote a small software under the GNU General Public License and put
> it on freshmeat.net for download. Now, someone likes this software and
> wants it to integrate into his own software as a module. This software
> is for sale. Is there a meaningfull solution about this issue? I just
> would like to give a "common" answer instead of a exotic one.
>
> thanks to all, Stefan

g000ze@gmx.net (gooze) wrote in message news:<e09c7315.0412010356.6245b53b@posting.google. com>...
> Hi
>
> I know, this might be the wrong place for such a question, but maybe
> you can redirect me to the right place to post.
>
> I wrote a small software under the GNU General Public License and put
> it on freshmeat.net for download. Now, someone likes this software and
> wants it to integrate into his own software as a module. This software
> is for sale. Is there a meaningfull solution about this issue? I just
> would like to give a "common" answer instead of a exotic one.

IANAL, but AFAIK, you can sell any GPL'ed software. The person who
purchases has the rights to use/modify/sell it--but not to change the
license--which means hiding the source code. So, hardly people will
buy GPL'ed software for commercial uses.

--
<?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

"gooze" <g000ze@gmx.net> wrote in message
news:e09c7315.0412010356.6245b53b@posting.google.c om...
> Hi
>
> I know, this might be the wrong place for such a question, but maybe
> you can redirect me to the right place to post.
>
> I wrote a small software under the GNU General Public License and put
> it on freshmeat.net for download. Now, someone likes this software and
> wants it to integrate into his own software as a module. This software
> is for sale. Is there a meaningfull solution about this issue? I just
> would like to give a "common" answer instead of a exotic one.

It's your software and copyright, if you have not used anybody else's code
you just need to strip the GPL licence from it and issue the software to him
under a protected copyright licence.