Martin van den Bemt wrote:
This statement :
project. "We are not in any way opposed to the commercial use of Free and Open Source Software and there is no legal risk of using GPL licensed software in commercial products.
Is incorrect btw, when you are using GPL'd java packages.. The risk here is that you need to GPL your commercial code if you depend on a java GPL package. Untill the FSF publically states that this is not the case, it is wise to not use GPL'd jars in your commercial software.
A way around this is using "reversed dependency strategy", so instead of you dependending on gpl, let the gpl depend on you, through eg a plugin, although if the software you have written cannot work at all without that dependency (so is core to your software), this strategy makes no sense and you have to make your system GPL or find a different package with better licensing.
I think that idea of "no dependency" comes form one of the Free Software Foundations FAQs on the GPL, rather than from the GPL itself, and thus represents how they would like the GPL to be interpreted, rather than how it would actually be interpreted by the courts.
The expert legal advice we received is that GPLed source code cannot be combined with non-GPLed source code and then distributed to others, nor can GPLed code be statically linked or otherwise compiled together into one programme with non-GPLed code and then distributed to others. However, there are unlikely to be legal problems with the distribution of non-GPLed code which merely calls GPLed code at runtime, or vice-versa - as long as there is a clear separation between the source code and/or the compiled code as it is distributed. The reason for this view is the following clause in Section 0. of the GPL, which is pretty unequivocal:
"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does."
In other words, GPLed code must be clearly separated from non-GPLed code when it is being copied, distributed or modified, but what happens at runtime is out of scope of the GPL.
BTW, we sought this advice because our code (licensed under the Mozilla Public License) calls a GPLed package. As long as we distribute the GPLed package separately, or instruct users to get it themselves from elsewhere, then there is no problem with such a run-time dependency, as clearly stated in the GPL itself.
Tim C
