Re: Free Software Clarification
On Fri, Sep 04, 1998 at 10:37:23AM -0400, Greg Vence wrote:
> It is allowed until your friend wants to issue a commercial version.
> However, this means that he would not be able to use the GPL.
>
> GPL doesn't let anyone 'make money' off it; not even the author.
That's not true. For instance, you can hire people to write GPLed code. Or I
can offer you my GPL-ed user-space null device implementation for $100.
> I believe that GPL prevents _any_ derived work from being commercial.
That's not true. I can charge you a million bucks for my modified version of
a GPLed program. After you pay, you of course have all the rights the GPL
gives you though, so you can put that version on the web for everybody to
snarf.
> I'm fairly certain that GPL applies to the author as well as others.
That's not true: a license, being enforced by copyright law, does not apply
to the author, but only to others.
It looks like you need to read up on copyright and licensing issues.
For instance, read "Why selling Free Software can be OK"
(http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/selling.html) and
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/philosophy.html in general.
HTH,
Ray
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