I guess you know more as you have said a couple of times that they are a customer of virtualbox although I have not seen that anywhere. Is there anywhere this can be checked?
What I don't understand is why they are not particularly clear about their licensing. If they have a non open source license then it should be stated somewhere, no? Libraries and such (QT) where closed source/commercial programs can use their facilities are not licensed using gpl but other licenses like the lgpl, MIT or BSD licensing which allows this. If they are dual licensed with a gpl license then any software using them also has to be gpl licensed unless they are actually licensed using the other license. They also seem to be using product names from vmware, 'workstation' and player which is again a ripoff. If they are using the OSE, gpl licensed, then they are probably in violation of the gpl is all I'm saying. I would appreciate it if someone *who actually knows the situation* can clarify the situation BEFORE I invest any time in this product. I don't want to sponsor software where they might be violating the gpl. Cheers Rehan > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:vbox-users- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of Alexey Eremenko > Sent: 16 December 2009 11:01 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [vbox-users] vmlite > > On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Rehan <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I don't believe that is the case but then I am not a lawyer. > > > > As I understand it, under the gpl, one can charge a small amount to > > cover distribution costs and one can sell support contracts. One > cannot > > "sell the software as long as sources are freely available". > > > > VirtualBox is dual licensed, so customers can choose which license > they want. VMlite, which is also a customer, can choose the > proprietary VBox license, and keep sources closed. > > Same trick works for Qt library. Skype and Google Earth are based on > it, but both are closed source projects. > > -- > -Alexey Eromenko "Technologov" > _______________________________________________ vbox-users mailing list [email protected] http://vbox.innotek.de/mailman/listinfo/vbox-users
