On Monday 16 May 2005 19:48, you wrote:

On Monday 16 May 2005 01:51, Greg Freemyer wrote:

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Quote: When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or using a shared library, the combination of the two is legally speaking a combined work, a derivative of the original library. The ordinary General Public License therefore permits such linking only if the entire combination fits its criteria of freedom. The Lesser General Public License permits more lax criteria for linking other code with the library.

We call this license the "Lesser" General Public License because it does Less to protect the user's freedom than the ordinary General Public License. It also provides other free software developers Less of an advantage over competing non-free programs. These disadvantages are the reason we use the ordinary General Public License for many libraries. However, the Lesser license provides advantages in certain special circumstances. End Quote.

But if I use M$ software then my product is mine. If it is always going to be that way then why "bust your guts" trying to achieve something if you have to give it away. Sorry, but if this is to be the official line for Linux then it is doomed to stay at the guru or amateur level. How do the owners of Qt get away with charging for their software and keeping their source code secret?

When I read the GNU licence statements they all go around in circles arguing the advantages of open software without actually stating anything except that everybody has the right to the source code and everybody can charge a fee and distribute everything, even the code they didn't put any effort into. Sure SuSE cover their back side by saying that proprietary software cannot be distributed, but who actually knows which parts of the DVD are proprietary? They don't exactly supply a list.

Regards, Colin

I second the sentiment about incentive to bust a gut doing something original, then having to give it away, and your conclusion about amateur status as well. I suspect that is why the LPGL (which I never heard of before you brought it up :-) ) came about. I don't think anyone will come after you for basing something on Motif & selling it, though. You could buy a cheap Octane on Ebay (& IRIX ROMs as well, all legal) & you would be free to develope Motif apps to your hearts content. You could also claim that that's how you developed the app & I suspect nobody would be the wiser. That is essentially what I do ;-), develope on SGI's, port to Linux, & off to the races.

This is just my dilemma. Thanks for understanding. I need to think more tomorrow - it is after 1am here in Sydney and the old brain is failing... Regards, Colin

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Colin,

I think (hope) your miss-understanding the licenses.

IANAL, but as I understand it if a library is licensed under the GPL, then all code that linked to the library and distributed is also covered by the GPL.

OTOH, that is not true of the LGPL. With the LGPL, as long as the library, etc. has a standard api and you are not modifing the library itself, nor the api, then your code is yours and yours along.

If you do have to modify the library, I'm not sure what the LGPL says, but that is still a lesser issue and the LGPL should only require publication, etc. of your changes to the library, not the application code you are linking to it.

I don't know about any of the X-type libraries, but the core C/C++ libraries for linux are LGPL for this very reason.

Greg

Thanks Greg for your view. I feel that yours is a reasonable view. I wouldn't mind paying a reasonable fee for the compiler or any other tools; in fact I don't "rip off" stuff in general and don't undermine the music industry; but it is the "not knowing" which concerns me. And I really don't want to divert my time into learning the Qt system - a task in itself. I have since learnt a thousand time what I learnt at Uni, but at the moment I am flat out learning other things :-) Jerry has also made a good comment, so I'll respond to him separately. Given what you have both said I am thinking that I will probably manage to proceed okay. Greg, the last paragraph is not aimed at you; in fact it is aimed at certain others who will know who they are :-) So I will say, Best Regards Greg, Colin I don't mind sharing my ideas. In fact I have been a 'teacher' at secondary level, tertiary level, and in industry for many years, and it is one of my career strong points. So I have given away a lot, and will continue to do so. In fact the guy who gave me my current contract has said to his employees "Get what you can from Colin while he is here." I took that as a big compliment. But I have encountered some who steal ideas and tout them as their own, yet won't share their ideas. If somebody out there is trying to write some code to sell, and he needs advice on mathematics, physics, engineering, statistics, engineering then just ask - I may be able to give you something. But don't anybody TELL me that I have no right to own what I build.