GPL

[Les Mikesell]

Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:

>>> Free Software is also commercial! You can use Free Software to gain money
>>> even if you release your program under the GPL.
>> You can sell one copy - but you can't prevent that customer from giving 
>> away copies to everyone else.  Or you can give the program away yourself 
>> and sell support.
> 
> You can charge for as many copies as you want, as much as you can charge it
> for. You can also charge 0.

And so can anyone else, once you have released your first copy, so it is 
likely that you'll be competing against someone charging 0.

> In any of the cases, you can also charge for support.

Good programs don't need much support - and who is going to buy a bad one?

>> If you use libraries (like the MySQL client) covered by the GPL and 
>> distribute the program, the entire work must be under GPL terms - 
>> although I think an earlier message had a link to an exception for MySql 
>> for some other open source license terms.
> 
> But you do not merely "use" libraries, you include them in the program.
> 
> That's why :)

In most cases, the end user supplies his own copy of the library, which 
he obtained as a standard component of his OS distribtution, so I think 
the whole concept is on pretty shaky legal ground. But, I wouldn't want 
to be the one paying the court costs to sort it out.  And in the case of 
MySql there's not much reason to, since PostgresSQL is arguably a better 
database without any of the restrictions.  Even better, use ODBC, perl 
DBI, or a similar database independent interface and let the end user 
choose his own database so there can be no claim that you have created a 
derived work.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com