[techtalk] GPL Questions

[Kelly Lynn Martin]

On Thu, 11 Nov 1999 22:25:23 -0600, Stephan Zaniolo <eaglefeather at mindspring.com> said:

>But I could write a
>proprietary program for GNOME using the GNOME API (assuming there is
>one), right?  Or am I missing something?

I think gnome-libs is LGPL, which allows linkage with proprietary
code.  However, you cannot distribute anything that links against GPL
code without licensing it under the GPL as well.  Also, I'm not
certain of this, but it MAY be permissible to distribute IN SOURCE
FORM ONLY code not licensed under the GPL which must be linked against 
a GPL library to function.  However, the resulting executable may not
be distributed.

>	The idea was to be running the servlet(s) and database off our
>own server and allow others to write interfaces for the data input
>and maybe output.  I'm not sure if the others would GPL their code or
>not, so I'm assuming they won't and I don't want to force them into
>it if they don't want to.  (The open sourcing of the code is more for
>peer review, security checking, and showing the third parties what
>we've done and how, rather than for distribution of the software and
>I'd rather not be dealing with two versions of the system for
>simplicity-sake.  Of course, I don't want anyone to steal our work
>and make it proprietary which is why I'm looking at the GPL.  Does
>this clarify things?)

I think you want the LGPL.

Kelly

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