Re: Proprietary software on Top of free software

IMHO, there are 3 types of library regarding to the licensing issue:

  1. GPL libraries, Proprietary software should avoid using them.
  2. LGPL/BSD/other loose licenses, Proprietary software can use them
without any legal issue.
  3. Other license, such as Trolltech's QPL. those license should be
examined carefully. most popular one are Trolltech's QPL and JRE/JDK
license from SUN/IBM/BEA.

on my RH9 box, roughly 150 libraries packages are GPL, about 70 of
them are the *-devel-* packages which usually should only be used to
enhance the exist open source software, the other 80 or so are trivial
libraries. about 300 libraries are either LGPL or BSD or some other
less strict license, important libraries such as glibc, glib, gtk+,
unixODBC etc. are members of this category, which should be enough for
the proprietary software development.

i think the legal team of big software companies (like IBM, HP, Intel,
BEA, KingSoft, Oracle, Veritas, Legato, SAP, CA...) are doing their
job by examing the library license carefully, that's why we can get
weblogic, websphere, real player, MQ, tivoli, oracle, DB2, sybase,
Domino, Kylix, jbuilder... they either use only LGPL-type licensed
library or already have bought the commercial license of certain
libraries, for most 'popular' libraries, you can always find the
LGPL-type licensed counterpart. besides, big ones have enough money
and man-power to develop the libraries themselves.

so, there are many ways to avoid being infected by Open Software, no
one want to be controlled, either by proprietary software or open
software, in the open world, you can always have an option, that's
beauty.


On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 23:07:49 +0800, Matteo Paiato <mpaiato-/[email protected]> wrote:
> Dear penguins,
> I have a curiosity:
> 
> how is it possible for a company to develop a Closed Software on top of
> an Open source Platform such as Linux.
> Most of the licenses used are viral (GPL), in term that if you use code
> (library also?) open source in your Software this should be Open source
> too. It seems LGPL is an exception.
> 
> There are already many commercial (and not open source) applications
> for Linux (Oracle and so on) but in which  way  this software is not
> "infected" by the licensing terms of the Platform where it is developed
> and run?
> 
> Thanks, Grazie
> 
> Matteo
> 
> P.S.
> 
> the terms  "Viral" and "infected" are used in this email  absolutely
> in their positive meaning!
> 
> P.P.S
> 
> don't ask me what is the positive side of a Virus!
> 
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