[Carlos E. R.]
[François Pinard]
You may sell GPL'ed software, nothing forces you to give it. However, you ought to unconditionally provide full sources in some form, and make sure you forward all the freedom you received yourself. In particular, you may not sell sources separately, nor forbid your customer to freely give the GPL'ed software he got from you, if s/he feels like doing so.
Which means that there is very little point in selling it, as your client can give it for free to your own future possible clients.
As Richard Creighton pointed to me privately, my reply (quoted above) was merely a fine point to his own reply to a lady who felt almost guilty of making some profit out of using Linux, while there was absolutely no reason to feel guilty. Yet, I feel like developing a bit on the above argument. Suppose (it's an actual case, in fact) a customer hires me for developing some new software, which does not already exist. If I may use GPL'ed code within this new software, my productivity is boosted, and I could develop the software at a lesser cost. I shall provide my customer with sources, and I may not forbid him to give out my code. This customer may not sell my code or any derivation of it without providing full sources, and he may not further restrict the rights he got with what I gave him. If he wanted to (keeping sources or rights to him), I should have avoided using GPL'ed code to start with, and charged him a higher price. But if my customer decides to keep the code for his sole use and not distribute it further, the GPL is no obstacle at all for him in practice. In a word and to summarize, I sell my programming as a service, but I do not really sell the result of my programming -- that is, the program itself -- in the usual acceptation of "selling a program", but this only if my program includes GPL'ed source. Without including GPL'ed code in mine, I could even sell my program with special limiting licenses, and the fact I used Linux as a development platform is no impediment. -- François Pinard http://pinard.progiciels-bpi.ca -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org