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

6: Re: Packages and the GPL (response to 1)

Posted by Don Baccus on 08/13/03 09:00 PM

In the past we've said the OpenACS core is much like the Linux kernel - you don't *link* with it and commercial products can be released on top of it as long as you don't modify and distribute changes to our code.

Or distribute our code as part of your package.

In other words, if you release a nice tarball of everything rolled together then you're distributing our code and would have to release your package under the GPL, too.

But if you're not distributing your package, or if you distribute the package by itself (requiring anyone to install OpenACS separately) then you're OK.

We encourage new packages - especially those of general interest - to be GPL'd for hopefully obvious reasons: we all benefit by being able to build on the work done by community members for clients or employers.

But we recognize that it's not always possible to release code under the GPL ...

7: Re: Packages and the GPL (response to 6)

Posted by Steve Manning on 08/13/03 09:53 PM

Don,

Thanks for that, your a saint. I'm probably being pedantic but when you say 'distribute our code as part of your package' you don't include calls to the OpenACS core like [ad_conn user_id] in this?

For most of our customers, we would do the installation. Presumably this is still ok provided the standard OACS install is performed then our package is installed on top.

Finally, I appreciate that this gpl question has been asked before, so if yours is the official view is there any chance of placing your statement somewhere prominent on openacs.org so thats its available for all to see.

Steve