Am 29. Sep, 2004 schwätzte Nathan England so:

> 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?

The GPL is not 'viral'. It does not reach out and infect other stuff. The
m$ license on not producing GPLd code w/ their compiler could maybe be
seen as viral as that does affect things that aren't attached to it.

Is your company using the code internally? Nothing in the GPL requires
making code publicly available if the resulting programs aren't available
publicly.

An example I used last night is that even on my home use projects I tend
to use the GPL.  Most of it will never be seen my anyone but me, though. I
don't release the program, so I don't have to release the code.

> Are there libraries we can use that aren't GPL?

Look at LGPL. It doesn't require release of code that links against it.

*BSD/MIT/Apache/Mozilla style licenses don't require release of code in any
way.

> 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?

There are many options, depending on what you're doing and what the
company's needs are. One thing you can do is to develop using Trolltech's
QT, then pay Trolltech to use their licensed version.

> We would like to use a lot of GPL stuff, but are genuinely afraid of the
> 'viral' effects.

Then don't use stuff from m$, Apple, Adobe, etc.  :)

ciao,

der.hans
-- 
#  https://www.LuftHans.com/    http://www.AZOTO.org/
#  Don't step in front of speeding cars, don't eat explosives
#  and don't use m$ LookOut :). - der.hans
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