[AuckLUG] perst license conflicting statements

[Martin Baehr]

On Sat, Jun 16, 2007 at 06:52:37PM +1200, Ravi Chemudugunta wrote:
> If you also release your application source code under the GPL, there is no
> commercial license needed for Perst.  However if you do not release your
> application source code under the GPL, then you must buy a commercial
> license from us for deployment for any purpose.

ok, that's a clear language.

> so ... it brings me back to the question ... how much of your application do
> you need to publish.., as guy mentioned we aren't so much selling our
> application but selling a service which utilizes this: still a bit confused
> - i don't want to violate open source ... not sure what to do about it
> still...

first off, you do not need to publish anything!
the GPL does not require publication.
what it does require is, to give rights to those who receive your code.

so, if i am your customer, and you give me your software together with
perst, then you need to give ME your code with the GPL rights.

GPL gives rights only to those that get your code.

if you are only selling a service to me, and i never get any software
from you, then the GPL does not give me any rights.

compare that to the Allegro General Public License.
the AGPL has an additional clause that requires you to give me your code
even if you only use it in a webservice.

this will be actually quite interesting, as the AGPL is defined to be
compatible with the GPL3, i hope to be able to make use of it as i am
mostly working on networking services, and as those become more and more
used, i am already unhappy with the fact that so many of them are
unavailable to me to fix and improve.

greetings, martin.
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