Subj : GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : Joe Butler
Date : Tue Aug 23 2005 04:46 pm

So, what's the reasoning behind these licences that don't allow a commercial
(closed source) apps from using them?

In once sense, if the idea behind the GPL, etc. is to benefit others, this
is a limitation that will reduce the number of people that can actually
benefit from it.  A closed source app is not going to open its source just
so it can use some GPL.  If the source was allowed to be used by all,
without the restrictions on commercial apps, that would benefit a lot more
people, wouldn't it?

You'd have commercial apps integrating GPL stuff that people would buy if
they offered something that the free alternatives didn't offer.  You have
all the free stuff, just as if the commercial app didn't exist (except that
you might have fewer users due to some of them prefering the commercial
alternative).  You'd still have the open source 'community' that could
emulate the commercial app, if they wanted to.

I think if I were producing a commercial app and wanted to use some GPL, I'd
just write an open source wrapper around the GPL stuff and release the
wrapper so that commercial apps were allowed to use it - the wrapper might
be a bit of a dog to use though ;-)  Would that layer circumnavigate the
restrictions?

.