However, businesses using gnu software in commercial activity, and people doing public ftp distribution, should need to check the real english gpl. The gpl guarantees everyone with the software identical permissions. The gnu affero general public license is designed specifically to ensure that, in such cases, the modified source. Since the source code is universally available, there are also many more chances for bugs to be caught and fixed. The choice of licence comes down to personal preference, and both approaches can. Honestly, i would try to avoid the gpl anywhere you can. When a program is licensed under the gnu general public license the gpl. A practical guide to gpl compliance software freedom law. Wikipedias content is mostly under the creative commons bysa license, which has similar sharealike features to the gpl.
Gpl is the acronym for gnus general public license, and its one of the most popular open source licenses. The software freedom law center provides practical advice for developers about including permissively licensed source. If i use gpl software in my application, but dont modify or distribute it, do i have to release my application under the gpl. Ffmpeg is licensed under the gnu lesser general public license lgpl version 2. Qgis is an official project of the open source geospatial foundation osgeo. I have a concern of using gpl v2 and gpl v3 licensed software in commercial production environment. The first version of the affero general public license agplv1, was published by affero, inc. Can i use the gplv3 license for my commercial application. Lawsuit threatens to break new ground on the gpl and.
Open source licenses grant permission for anybody to use, modify, and share licensed software for any purpose, subject to conditions preserving the provenance and openness of the software. The gpl is tactically less free, but strategically more free. Haufig gestellte fragen zur gnu gplv2 free software foundation. Because wordpress is licensed by the general public license gpl and is an open source software oss project, any themes or plugins also follow the gpl licensing structure. Some features, such as support for some external libraries libx264 and libx265 for example and various filters, are covered by the gnu general public license gpl version 2 or later see commercial x264 license exception below. The most widespread such license is the gnu general public license, or gnu gpl for short. Gpl, also known as copyleft, grants permission to reuse or modify the source code to make derivative works, but if you distribute your program to others, it requires you to license your derivative work under the gpl too. The software included in this product contains ed software that is licensed under the gpl. Commercial software is any software or program that is designed and developed for licensing or sale to end users or that serves a commercial purpose. Free software allows incredible freedom to the end user.
Sharing or selling blender addons python scripts blenders python api is an integral part of the software, used to define the user interface or develop tools for example. My comments here are not about the validity or the great value of the gpl it is an unquestionably. When using larger packages, be sure to check not only the license for that package, but for all the. I have licensed every piece of software i have ever written under the gpl, i have been an active financial supporter of the free software foundation and software freedom conservancy and the work they do, and i advocate for the usage of the gpl. Why should i use the gnu gpl rather than other free software licenses. The second version agplv2 was published in november 2007, as a transitional license to allow an upgrade path from. Wordpress gpl commercial themes and plugins dummies. Most gpl version 2 software is actually licensed as gpl version 2 or any later version, or.
Gpl requires that the software be distributed in sourcecode form, and stipulates that any user can copy and distribute the software in sourcecode form to anyone else. Craig mundie, microsoft senior vice president, the commercial software model the new york university stern school of. As long as were not linking directly towards the package, but rather just send or receive messages from it, that is. I would like to use haproxy as a load balancing solution. The following licenses are in use for r or associated software such as packages. In this discussion, john will revisit many of the licensing and ip concepts discussed earlier in the course.
The commercial license allows oems, isvs and vars to distribute commercial binaries of mysql software with their own commercial software without subjecting that software to the gpl and its requirement to distribute source code. Using gpllicensed components in proprietary projects. It ought not force us to release all our own software in the product under the gpl. Top 10 gnu gpl license questions answered whitesource. I wont modify anything from source code and the architecture of the system requires the use of a load balancer. The free software foundation considers the apache license, version 2. Some of the mostinstalled open source software is gpllicensed, such as linux, wordpress, and wikipedias underlying software, mediawiki. The following licenses are sorted by the number of conditions, from most gnu agplv3 to none unlicense. The gpl has nothing to do with whether you charge for the software or distribute it for free. If software is licenced under a gpl license, can it be used without restriction in a corporate commercial environment. In some senses, thats very permissive because the aggregate permissiveness is maximized. Frequently asked questions about the gnu licenses gnu project. Software can become incompatible with secondary licenses in one of two ways.
It is therefore often thought that gpllicensed software is unsuitable for proprietary projects. Gpl the gnu general public license the gpl is a copyleft software licence 1 published by the usbased free software foundation. The fsf argues that free software should not place. It is a specific implementation of his copyleft concept. It restricts you from using software to build nongpl software including bsdlicensed free software, but it prevents software from being taken private by commercial developers.
The software that i am refering to is qgis which provides this description. By using the image, youd have to force your entire application under the gpl. Relationships between the gpl licences and other software are carefully explained in the gpl faq. The gnu gpl is the most widely used free software license and has a strong copyleft requirement. Many of the popular theme and plugin providers in the commercial wordpress space are compliant with the gpl, and you can feel comfortable knowing that the software they. Not at allthere are many other free software licenses. The gnu general public license gpl represents one familial branch of the oss license tree that is explicitly designed to promote software distribution for the purposes of inspection, modi. This latter point distinguishes the gpl from software licenses that prohibit commercial redistribution. Can i use gpl software in a commercial application software. The agpl makes straightforward commercial sense we use it.
But the wording of both the license and the faq is misleading, and the suggestion that you can gpl your commercial software is disingenuous. The gnu gpl license therefore requires that such scripts if published are being shared under a gpl compatible license. Id also like to make it clear that it cant be used for military andor commercial uses. The licenses were originally written by richard stallman, former head of the free software foundation fsf, for the gnu project, and grant the recipients of a computer program the rights of the free software. The gnu general public license gnu gpl or gpl is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the software. This is what the gpls copyleft clause is known for. You have the right to use the program for any purpose.
A copy of that license is included in this document on page x. What is the difference between gpl, agpl and lgpl licenses. Hi, using a gpl licensed package in a commercial product should not be a problem, right. Using gpl licensed packages in a commercial product. The gnu affero general public license is designed specifically to ensure that, in such cases, the modified source code becomes available to the community. This is explained in subsections 6a and 6b of the gpl. Oracle offers a commercial license for all of its mysql software that is embedded in or bundled with another application. Lawyers for commercial software vendors have feared a claim like this for essentially the entire 20oddyear lifetime of the gpl. Gpl code buried deep in software could give rise to a demand that you release your source code. Why the gpl is incompatible with commercial software. Qgis is a user friendly open source geographic information system gis licensed under the gnu general public license.
There are multiple variants of the gnu gpl, each with different requirements. Open source software which falls under the gpl may be run for all purposes, including commercialpurposes and even as a tool for creating proprietary software. The gnu general public license permits making a modified version and letting the public access it on a server without ever releasing its source code to the public. For more information, please contact the mysql oem sales team. Commercial software was once considered to be proprietary software, but now a number of free and opensource software applications are licensed or sold to end users. Government computer software acquisition and the gnu. You may copy, distribute and modify the software as long as you track changesdates of in source files and keep modifications under gpl. The commercial license allows oems, isvs and vars to distribute commercial binaries of mysql software with their own commercial software without subjecting that software to the gpl and its requirement to distribute source. The creative commons attributionsharealike international license version 4. This can be further shortened to gpl, when it is understood that the gnu gpl is the one intended. If i understand it correctly, if we use a secret message format that we dont explain to anyone we could. If software is licenced under a gpl license, can it be used without restriction in a corporatecommercial environment. These licenses range from minimal to extensive text.