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by nisa 4686 days ago
Derivates of GPL software are also GPL licenced. If you use a lot of GPL code in your product you have to provide the source.

The possibility of a dual licence gives the creator a compensation because he waives the rights the GPL gives him for you.

Also: Support contracts. A lot of poeple live in the support ecosystem and adapt GPL/BSD software for costumers.
1 comments
GalacticDomin8r 4686 days ago
> If you use a lot of GPL code in your product you have to provide the source.

Fixed:

If you use ANY GPL code in your product you have to provide the source.(There are of course exeptions eg LGPL)

Also it isn't simply derivative work that that can be forced to re-license under the GPLv3. If FreeBSD had elected to adopt a GPLv3 compiler and distribute the source(as they do with the compiler) then the FreeBSD kernel itself would become subject to it. In fact, it isn't just gcc which has this restriction. Any GPL v3 code isn't allowed in base.

Further reading:

http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/press/2007Aug-newsletter.sh...

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nly 4686 days ago
Nonsense. Just putting GCC source code in to the BSD repository wouldn't magically spread the requirement that the entire project become GPL any more than keeping a copy on my hard drive requires I give the FSF the complete contents of my /home directory. What matters is the dependency/linkage.

The GCC 'runtime library exception' firewalls all 'target code' from the GPLv3, and even allows proprietary preprocessors, linkers and assemblers (but nothing that would involve modifying GCC to split what it does in to more granular stages)

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foobarbazqux 4686 days ago
In particular, Apple shipped GCC with Darwin.
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TylerE 4686 days ago
If you're going to be a pedant, get it right.

You have to license any code that links with GPL code under the GPL. This does not prevent you from dual-licensing your own portion of the code base, or shipping non-GPL, non-linked code as part of the same product (Although in the case of things like DLL plugins it gets a bit hazy)

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rickjames28 4686 days ago
You have to license any code that links with GPL code under the GPL. This does not prevent you from dual-licensing your own portion of the code base, or shipping non-GPL, non-linked code as part of the same product (Although in the case of things like DLL plugins it gets a bit hazy)

Actually, that's a common, but wrong interpretation. The whole work becomes GPL, but the code that links to GPL code doesn't have to be GPL.

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foobarbazqux 4686 days ago
It has to be "GPL-compatible" though, which means whoever you give it to can convert it to the GPL by adding the extra conditions of the GPL to it.
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