Jeremy,
This brings me to my next question. We want to offer our code as open source,
but we want to release version 1.0, then when version 2.0 comes out, we'll
open source (GPL probably) version 1.0...
How does BSD compare? Would we be safer to be writing, compiling and doing
everything on BSD? I'm just getting into this license thing and I don't want
to get my company in trouble. Most importantly, we don't want to break any
laws, assuming the GPL would hold up in court. We respect the GPL, you
understand. Now, as far as I know right now, everything we have is kosher.
What libraries we are using are unmodified LGPL libraries, mostly c/c++
libraries part of the Gnu C libraries.
Quick description. A package update component has the ability to connect to
our servers to download updates for our products. When the source is compiled
it will look for openssl libraries, if it finds them, it will compile
additional code to allow the use of encrypted connections between you and our
servers. If it does not find the openssl libraries, it will continue on
without it. Now, assuming the openssl is GPL and not LGPL, would we have to
make our code GPL, or only when compiled using the openssl encryption? If so,
that's not possible for our company.
Kurt sent a link to an article he wrote that seems to have cleared quite a bit
up for me, but I still have some questions, such as that.
Even if you compile our software with openssl, then remove the libraries, our
software will still run, normally infact, but if you try to connect to a
secure channel, it will then fail due to insufficient libraries...
So would that be a violation?
Would FreeBSD make this any easier? We initially went with Linux of FreeBSD
because I've been using Slackware since 3.3 and I love it.
But, on the other hand, we could still GPL our code now. Our customers
wouldn't know what to do with the sources, and we don't have to give them
out, only offer them the source and let them know they have so much time to
ask us for the source after purchasing the product from us. So we don't have
to give it away, per se. And that would limit our exposure to releasing the
code. That's an option we are okay with. But the bean counters are still a
little scared and I can't totally convince them.
I think I'm gonna burn a 5.1 cd soon!
Thanks for all the input PLUG. It's been great. I appreciate this learning
experience.
Nathan
On Wednesday 29 September 2004 18:34, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Nathan England wrote:
> > Are there libraries we can use that aren't GPL?
>
> Definitely.
>
> What do you need?
>
> Do you already use GPL in your code?
>
> > 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?
> >
> > We would like to use a lot of GPL stuff, but are genuinely afraid of the
> > 'viral' effects.
>
> You are not the only one.
>
> Have a look at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html and
> http://www.opensource.org/licenses/
>
> Also be sure to research the licenses used by original X11 and BSD
> operating systems.
>
>
> Jeremy C. Reed
>
> BSD News, BSD tutorials, BSD links
> http://www.bsdnewsletter.com/
>
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