On Tue, Feb 27, 2007 at 07:13:31AM -0600, Jon Schewe wrote: > What about people that want to use your project and are willing to > give back to the project patches to improve the project, but are > unable to open source the software they are writing that uses your > project? A couple things have to occur to force their hand into opening up their source code. The program must be a derivative of the GPL covered software AND it must be distributed to a 3rd party. Distributing to an employee's computer is not considered distributing to a 3rd party. 1. Software must be a derivative: They have to link to the project's libraries or binaries. Note, this says "link", not execute. This indicates that they're calling the library directly in their application. Executing an application and working with the published interfaces (stdio, sockets, pipes, protocol-based interaction), is not a violation of GPL copyright licenses. 2. Software must be distributed: If they do link to the project's libraries or binaries, they must also distribute the software in some manner for the license to be in effect. You can write all the software you want in private, even in terms of Company assets. However, if you ship a program to customers or end-users, you are obligated to live up to the GPL. -- Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net> http://www.wookimus.net/ assert(expired(knowledge)); /* core dump */ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: Digital signature Url : http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20070227/44626c41/attachment.pgp