Rev/Livecode project and GPL Licenses

[Richard Gaskin]

Mark Schonewille wrote:

 > On 15 apr 2011, at 16:14, Richard Gaskin wrote:
 >
 >> Scott McDonald wrote:
 >>>
 >>> Where I was getting it mixed up, was that I was equating selling
 >>> commercially with not making the source code available.
 >>>
 >>> But of course, they are not the same thing.
 >>
 >> Not exactly the same, but how many people pay for milk when they can
 >> get the cow for free?
 >>
 >> If the GPL-licensed technology you're considering is absolutely
 >> essential, you may have no choice.
 >>
 >> But if you can find an alternative solution using something governed
 >> by the Apache or MIT licenses you'll not have to worry about GLPing
 >> your own stuff.
 >
 > Richard,
 >
 > You'd be surprised how many don't know how to milk a cow or wouldn't
 > bother doing so because it is so much easier to buy the milk in the
 > supermarket. I, for one, could get a cow for free, but I have no
 > place for it on my balcony.

True, and indeed there are some who make getting and using their GPL 
source unnecessarily cumbersome, such as sharing the source with no make 
file.

But such a gambit is too easily transparent and risks alienating the 
very people who are providing your components, the FOSS community. 
Moreover, anyone can make a tool to obviate such a trick to make it easy 
to share the software.

And of course with LiveCode, turning source into an executable requires 
only one click, so the number of people who might be willing to milk 
that cow is much larger than those who think it's difficult to run a 
make file.

The point of GPL isn't to trick people into giving you free components 
for your app, but to participate in an open sharing of software.

There's a reason most commercial works using GPL also use a dual license 
for their commercial version, rather than expecting people to pay for 
something that anyone can download, modify, and redistribute for free.

The bottom line is that if you want to participate in free software, 
make free software.

If instead you just want to benefit from free software without giving 
anything back to the community, read the license agreement very 
carefully and it may be good to consider consulting an attorney who 
specializes in IP to make sure the implications are well understood.

LGPL is a bit more flexible in allowing a free component to be used in a 
non-free application, but straight GPL may not be so clear, whether 
"linked" or not, if you distribute the GPL'd component as part of your 
app, as you noted in the article at your site.

I'm not an attorney, so local state law prohibits me from making any 
specific recommendations regarding licensing or other legal matters.

But I am a contributor to a few open source projects, so I feel fairly 
confident that if a component developer chooses GPL instead of LGPL he 
did so for a reason, and under the rights acknowledged by international 
law we should honor their decision.

When in doubt, the best way to understand the intentions of the creator 
of a work may be to simply ask him directly.  If he's a free-software 
zealot he'll probably make that clear, and if he's willing to make a 
proprietary-use license available for reasonable terms he'll probably 
make that clear too.  I find few developers turn down the opportunity to 
make unexpected money. :)

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
  LiveCode Journal blog: http://LiveCodejournal.com/blog.irv