Can i sell my pyqt4app without having a pyqt license. Sposting this here as some of you are experts in gnu licensing, and linuxquestions seems to be more for technical help. Does the gpl allow me to sell copies of the program for money. This question regards the gpl license for open source software. Selling free software some views on the ideas of selling exceptions to free software licenses, such as the gnu gpl are also available. The same general conditions apply to other popular foss licenses. Selling free software gnu project free software foundation. Frequently asked questions about the gnu licenses gnu project. In this case you would be redistributing pyqt which you can do. If i create a closed source application which uses some gpl licensed libraries but dont actually distribute the software, only its output, can i keep the software closed sourced.
You must include credit for gnu code in the game, you cannot patent or otherwise encumber the gnu code, and you must assign all enhancements and s made in the gnu code to the free software foundation. Mar 05, 2001 using gpl software in embedded applications. However, free here does not essentially mean freewareit can also be a paid software. The emacs general public license, a february 1988 version, a direct predecessor of the gnu gpl. The operating system is a collection of the basic instructions that tell the electronic parts of the computer what to do and how to work. However, note that commercial is not the same as proprietary. The agpl makes straightforward commercial sense we use it. Specifically, i am talking about a biological data analysis pipeline. If your software is licensed under the terms of the gpl, it is free. As the following article explains, my feelings about selling license exceptions are mixed. Qgis is a user friendly open source geographic information system gis licensed under the gnu general public license. You may copy, distribute and modify the software as long as you track changesdates of in source files and keep modifications under gpl. I think its fair to say that the concepts behind open source software have brought us all significant benefits.
A number of businesses use multilicensing to distribute a gpl version and sell a proprietary license to companies wishing to combine the. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. Hello, software licensed under gpl can be modified and used locally on your machine as you wish. One thing to be careful of there are a lot of people who associate the gpl with free as in beer software, not just in freedom to do what you want with the software you get. The most widespread use of gpl is in reference to the gnu gpl, which is commonly abbreviated simply as gpl when it is understood that the term refers. Can i use gpl libraries in a closed source project if only. For example, if you write some software and release it under the gnu general public license a widelyused copyleft license, and then someone else modifies that software and distributes their modified version, the modified version must be licensed under the gnu gpl too including any new code written specifically to go into the modified. Jun 29, 2007 free software foundation releases gpl 3. Can gpl licenced software be used in corporate environments. Except for one special situation, the gnu general public license gnu gpl has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. Yes you can sell it in both cases, but for gpl you need to provide the source code for the gpl parts as well as the code you have written your self. The people to whom you sold copies of gpl software are just as free as you are to make copies and sell them for whatever price they feel is right, including a price equal to zero.
Yes, that is allowed, but you still have to meet all of the requirements of the license. Using open source libraries with closed source software. You can make perfectly fine business selling gpl software, its. In doing so, we have found that most violations stem from a few common mistakes that can be, for the most part, easily avoided. Otherwise, the programs maintainer may be the holder, or else could tell you how to contact the holder, so report it to the maintainer. Top 10 gnu gpl license questions answered whitesource. Explaining and understanding the gnu general public license. Some views on the ideas of selling exceptions to free software licenses, such as the gnu gpl are also available many people believe that the spirit of the gnu project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possiblejust enough to cover the cost. They can also sell or give away copies of the program with or without any changes they made to it. Can you make profit with software under the gnu license. So while the free software foundation hippies may not like the idea of gnu gpl as a contract, they can t deny some satisfaction in the recursive nature of.
If big corp sells a product which does all the same things as open source group, wont the free product win. Furthermore, if you own the rights to something, you can distribute it under both the gpl and in the app store duallicensing is not new. Then do i have to release my application under the gpl, or can i just supply the modified software under the gpls terms. The implication is that gpled software is not necessarily free from cost, and therefore you can in fact license your programs under the gpl and still sell them for money. The gpl grants and guarantees a wide range of rights to developers who work on opensource projects. Difference between different types of open sources licenses. Basically, it allows users to legally copy, distribute and modify software. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty. The gnu general public license gnu gpl or gpl is a series of widely used free software. Gnu linux is a free and open source software operating system for computers. The gnu general public license gpl is a free, copyleft license used primarily for software. If you need to include opensource software licence terms as part of a broader proprietary licence, heres an example from apple, that shows how they do it, under the apple public source licence. What if i modify some software that my application uses.
Openoffice, for example, is distributed under the apache license. However, whats perhaps more important about gnu is that they are the authors of the gnu gpl general public licence, which is used by pretty much all the other system software and most if not quite all of the distro packaged applications. 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. You can see that as audacity is licensed under the gnu gpl, they have simply stated that the gnu gpl applies as the licence for audacity. The software included in this product contains ed software that is licensed under the gpl. Why you should use a bsd style license for your open source. The gpl the gnu general public license the most popular copyleft licence, sometimes gets a hostile press, often for reasons that dont reflect its real and positive effects.
It was written by richard stallman of free software foundation for gnu project. Nonfree programs are usually sold for a high price, but sometimes a store will. Both the binary and the source code becomes gpl so anyone else can get a copy from you, sell it or give it away for free. Gnucash is personal and smallbusiness financialaccounting software, freely licensed under the gnu gpl and available for gnu linux, bsd, solaris, mac os x and microsoft windows. This product contains software gpllicensed software that is provided to you under the gnu general public license gpl andor gnu librarylesser general public license lgpl. Both licenses can be considered open source and are founded on the same liberalcopyleft idea. Oct 02, 2016 gnu lgpl vs gpl lsoftware icensing short transcript. Nov 19, 20 with that said, dear techrepublic reader, the short answer to your first question is. I personally dont see why you can t do both as long as you make the source available for the gpl things youre using. Companies that develop free software and release it under the gnu gpl sometimes distribute some copies of the code in other ways. As long as you ensure that the plugin is not dynamically linked, you can share your software under a proprietary licence and distribute the plugin under the free. Can someone take a software under the gpl license, modify it and sell it in download form via the internet as a shareware application with 30 days timeout period. Gnu public license is all but free and you should never use it. The gnu general public license gpl is a computer software copyleft license.
That the first two are legal has no bearing on the. A copyleft license permits embedding in a larger program only if the whole combined program is released under that license. This can be further shortened to gpl, when it is understood that the gnu gpl is the one. Gpl software allows you to redistribute something as long as you provide it under the same license. Gpl is the acronym for gnus general public license, and its one of the most popular open source. This license allows software to be freely used, modified, and redistributed by anyone. Developers can omit it when licensing their software. It keeps your code bona fide open source, so people who want to use and extend it noncommercially can do so without worrying about you at all. The gnu gpl allows users to change and share all versions of a program. Differences between gpl and lgpl when using licensed 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. Aug 26, 2008 sflc continues to conduct gpl enforcement and compliance efforts for many of its clients who release their software under the gpl, the gnu lesser public license lgpl and other copyleft licenses.
Software licensed with any gnu license can be used and modified everywhere, without any restrictions in private and even in corporate environments. Then tell the publisher or holder of the specific gplcovered program. If they distribute the exact same code under a different license to certain users that pay for this, typically permitting including the code in proprietary programs, we call it selling exceptions. A copy of that license is included in this document on page x. Yes, you can rebrand open source software if it is under the gnu public licenses, which by definition it is. Selling exceptions depends fundamentally on using a copyleft license, such as the gnu gpl, for the free software release. Frequently asked questions about the gnu licenses gnu. License gnu gpl has no requirements about how much you can charge for. Clearly it is possible to develop powerful and complex software packages under the gnu gpl without selling exceptions, and we do this. The gnu general public license and lesser general public license only address copying or conveying, in gplv3 terminology, not use. Advocates of the gnu general public license gnu gpl like to perpetuate the idea that programs released under it are free as in speech, not free as in beer. Selling the software is actually not against the rules in the slightest bit. However, is it legally acceptable to try and patent a piece of software if that software uses a bsd licensed open source file as library or support code. Gnu general public license simple english wikipedia, the.
Apr 17, 2010 the agpl makes straightforward commercial sense we use it for our open source product, flint. Gnu general public license, version 2 spdx short identifier. The gnu general public license, often shortened to gnu gpl or simply gpl, lists terms and conditions for copying, modifying and distributing free software. If on the otherhand you have modified the package, cut and pasted code from the package, inserted your code into thier programs or otherwise changed thier code to get yours to work you can only further distribute with the same gnu license. On selling exceptions to the gnu gpl free software foundation. You can use any gpld software for commercial gain in general, too, of course. Can open source software be used for commercial purposes. A practical guide to gpl compliance software freedom law center. The gpl was created by richard stallman in order to protect gnu software from being made proprietary. Gpl is provided through the free software foundation, a nonprofit corporation that works to provide free software for the gnu project. A practical guide to gpl compliance software freedom law. Can i use own gnu gpl v3 library in my commercial projects. The gnu project itself encourages people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. The investigations and tradeoffs are no different whether one is an individual with an amount of time to invest to solve the problem or an it department wanting to use open source software on a large scale.
Can gnu licensed software be used for commercial gain. What is gnu general public license gnu gpl or simply gpl. However, you must provide access to the source code to anyone you distribute it to, whether you rebrand it or not. Dec 30, 2011 yes, you can sell the game, and make money from ads. Gnu is composed wholly of free software, most of which is licensed under the gnu projects own general public license gnu is a recursive acronym for gnu s not unix. 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. Nov 02, 2016 gpl, or the gnu general public license, is an open source license meant for software. This article by jerry epplin sheds some light on the issues associated with using gpl software in embedded applications, and attempts to dispel the. Can you take an open source software, modify it and sell it. Can gnu licensed software be used for commercial gain without. However, once you go to distribute it, you must release your modifications to the software under the same license. Gnu lesser general public license free software license published by the free software foundation fsf.
You can distribute your application using a gpl library commercially, but you must also provide the source code. The practice of selling license exceptions became a hot topic when i. The software that i am refering to is qgis which provides this description. On selling exceptions to the gnu gpl free software. If i use gpl software in my application, but dont modify or distribute it, do i have to release my application under the gpl. Feb 25, 2006 advocates of the gnu general public license gnu gpl like to perpetuate the idea that programs released under it are free as in speech, not free as in beer. Can you take an open source software, modify it and sell. Gnu lgpl vs gpl lsoftware icensing short transcript. A copy of the gpl andor lgpl as applicable is included in this file. Yes, as long as you own the rights to your own code, you could license it to.
You can charge someone for the software, but remember to give them a copy of gnu gpl which would tell them that they could get the software. In a nutshell, the idea of lgpld projects usually libraries is that you are free to use them as you wish in your own application, be it open or closed source, free or proprietary as long as you publish the source code of the lgpld part if you modify the lgpld part, you must publish the modified sources, under lgpl additionally, the libraries must be linked dynamically so that they. Whoever you sell it to must be allowed to use, modify and. If software is licenced under a gpl license, can it be used without restriction in a corporatecommercial environment. A short guide to open source licenses smashing magazine. Both of these are completely different than taking software which you were given under the terms of the gnu gpl, and redistributing it via the app store. If you want to use something covered by a stricter licence, like the gnu gpl, you can use the gnu gpl library as part of a plugin that connects with your primary proprietary software. Frequently answered questions open source initiative. You can support our efforts by making a donation to the fsf. If i use a piece of software that has been obtained under the gnu gpl, am i allowed to modify the original code into a new program, then distribute and sell that.
With that said, dear techrepublic reader, the short answer to your first question is. For now, gnu gpl is an enforceable contract, says us. This page is maintained by the free software foundations licensing and compliance lab. He can even take it to his boss, charlie, at microsoft, and they can sell alices tool in the next version of windows. If you receive software under an open source license, you. Why the gpl is incompatible with commercial software. Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, gnucash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses.
This does not actually preclude selling the software, but, there are all sorts. Are gnugpl font free for commercial use 1001 fonts forums. The question is, why would someone buy it, if presumably, they can get it for free. Not asking if one can patent the open source bsd licensed portion rather the unique software that was written on top of the open source. Gpl or general public license, sometimes also called gnu gpl, is the most commonly used free software license. May 12, 2015 if you sell a software under gnu gpl 3. This article by jerry epplin sheds some light on the issues associated with using gpl software in. Short for general public license, the license that accompanies some open source software that details how the software and its accompany source code can be freely copied, distributed and modified. This create a big confusion in the past because when gnu gpl license was used for fonts thats means that if you use the font in any document or artwork and you embed the font on it, your document or work lays under gpl gnu license, and thats means that you cannot sell your work beacuse of license. Many people believe that the spirit of the gnu project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possiblejust enough to cover the cost. Heres the fsfs page on selling gpl software, basically yea, you can do that, but you still have to obey the license. The most widespread such license is the gnu general public license, or gnu gpl for short. The license holders in this case are a hodgepodge collection of independent people and organizations.
In fact, you can use the software for any purpose you want, because you arent even required to accept the license. This license lets the user of the software use a program in many of the same ways as if it were public domain. Some modules we make are using more permissive licenses, though, for example, the blender cycles rendering engine is available as apache 2. Internally, our software will be using some gpl libraries to generate its output. The gnu general public licence gpl is probably one of the most commonly used licenses for opensource projects. Can gnu licensed software be used for commercial gain without selling the software. Can you legally sell modified versions of linux distros.
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