Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Packages and the GPL

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10: Re: Packages and the GPL (response to 1)
Posted by Andrew Piskorski on
Steve, writing "[ad_conn user_id]" is your code. The fact that it happens to call the ad_conn proc, the implementation of which is part of OpenACS, is no different than the fact that Oracle running on Linux makes function calls to the Linux kernel.

Back in the old days, aD sure wrote a whole heck of lot of custom code for all of its many clients. Often that code was entirely propietary, owned by the clients who paid for it. Clearly the lawyers for both aD and aD's customers thought this was just fine. However, this was usually the typical "GPL ACS, plus custom code for our custom site which we don't distribute to anybody" case.

Now, there may have been some, but I personally don't recall any aD client who wanted to re-distribute their custom code. My guess is what Don says above would have been aD's (and aD's lawyer's) position as well, but I don't know. Maybe the other OpenACS consultancies have had a customer with this situation? It does sound like something a nervous-about-open-source IT manager would ask...