On Wed, 2004-09-29 at 14:07, Nathan England wrote:
> My company is having problems with the GPL. We are concerned about the
> 'viral' effects of the GPL. Can we use GPL libraries in our software
> without open sourcing it?
> Are there libraries we can use that aren't GPL?
> We are 75% linux oriented, but would like a library that could cross OS
> boundaries. Are there any GPL libraries we could do that with, without
> open sourcing our code?

     Good questions. It shows your company is getting serious.
     Here's the deal. For each component of software that will be included in 
your final product, someone will need to determine its licensing 
requirements. (Someone has suggested grep'ing the source code for "Copyright" 
as a good way to start to track down all the different pieces.)
     The Linux kernel is GPL'd and, for your application-level software at 
least, the two are de-coupled (i.e., the GPL of the kernel has no effect on 
your application-level software). And for the common runtime C-libraries, 
they use the LGPL but, again, your application software is again de-coupled 
(by virtue of what the LGPL states). [Note that I'm omitting considerations 
for device drivers and other things that run in kernel mode where things 
start to get a little grey.]
     The complicated part is that the kernel and the common runtime C-library 
are only two of probably several dozen copyrighted components you may have in 
your final system. Someone will need to develop a complete list of all the 
packages (copyrighted works) that will be in your finished product and check 
the licensing requirements of all of them to deal with two issues:
     1) What does the use of each package require you to do, if anything, and
     2) Are the licenses of all the packages mutually agreeable (gnu.org has a 
list of licenses that are "compatible" with the GPL that may be helpful). 
That is, the requirements of some licenses may contradict with some other 
licenses require you to do. When that happens, something has to go: you must  
be able to fulfill the requirements of *all* the licenses or you can't use 
that particular set of components together.

     That sounds like a lot of work. Some companies (including one I used to 
work for) offer considerable relief in these regards by doing some (or all) 
of this legwork for you and either listing, or simply by providing only, 
those products (packages / components) that are compatible with the GPL. 
Using that company's distribution and adhering to the rules they provide, 
they will indemnify your company against licensing problems. (Of course, if 
sued, you'll probably have to prove that you followed their rules.) And not 
surprisingly, for this work (and for shouldering the liability of providing 
that assurance), they expect to be compensated.

     There's a brand new O'Reilly book on this topic but I haven't read it so 
I can't speak for its relevance.
     Finally, GPL (and most other "open source" licenses) haven't been tested 
in the US courts. So, YMMV.

-- 
Ed Skinner, ed@flat5.net, http://www.flat5.net/

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