Copyright (C) 1993, 1994 Aladdin Enterprises. All rights reserved. Permission to copy and distribute this document unmodified for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - This file, commprod.doc, sets forth the conditions under which Ghostscript may be distributed in a commercial context: under a written license from Artifex Software Inc., Aladdin Enterprises' exclusive commercial licensing partner, or under certain other very limited conditions. For an overview of Ghostscript and a list of the documentation files, see the README file in the Ghostscript fileset. The Use of the Public Access "Free" Version of Ghostscript ---------------------------------------------------------- Ghostscript is a copyrighted work whose copyright is owned by Aladdin Enterprises. Some versions of Ghostscript are distributed freely under the name Aladdin Ghostscript; these versions are always distributed with a license, called the Aladdin Ghostscript Free Public License (also known as the AGFPL), which permits Aladdin Ghostscript to be redistributed freely under certain conditions. These conditions will almost always be met easily by individuals in their personal use of Aladdin Ghostscript. Aladdin Ghostscript may be *used* freely, including by commercial entities for evaluation or unsupported internal use. However, *distribution* for commercial purposes of Ghostscript, or anything containing or derived from Ghostscript in whole or in part, requires a written commercial license from Artifex Software Inc., the sole entity authorized by Aladdin Enterprises to grant such licenses. More specifically, the AGFPL states: Distribution of the Program or any work based on the Program by a commercial organization to any third party is prohibited if any payment is made in connection with such distribution, whether directly (as in payment for a copy of the Program) or indirectly (as in payment for some service related to the Program); provided, however, that the fact that the Program is posted on a public access information storage and retrieval service for which a fee is received (such as an on-line service) shall not in and of itself be a violation of this restriction. The "in connection with" wording in the first clause prohibits including Aladdin Ghostscript "free" in a package containing anything for which a charge is being made. The intent of the exception provided in the second clause is to allow commercial organizations operating an FTP server or a bulletin board to distribute Aladdin Ghostscript freely from it, provided that: (1) the organization complies with the other provisions of the AGFPL, which include among other things a requirement to distribute the full source code of Aladdin Ghostscript and of any derived work, and to distribute the AGFPL itself along with Aladdin Ghostscript; (2) the only charge for downloading Aladdin Ghostscript is a charge based on the distribution service and not one based on the content of the information being retrieved (i.e., the charge would be the same for retrieving a random collection of bits of the same size); (3) the server or BBS is accessible to the general public, i.e., the phone number or IP address is not kept secret, and anyone may obtain access to the information (possibly by paying a subscription or access fee that is not dependent on or related to purchasing anything else). If you want to distribute software in a commercial context that incorporates Ghostscript and you do *not* want to meet these conditions, you should contact Artifex Software to find out about commercial licensing. Commercial licenses involve a (negotiated) payment, and include support and other benefits. These are the only ways you legally can distribute Ghostscript or anything containing Ghostscript: either by distributing Aladdin Ghostscript under the requirements of the AGFPL, or by getting a commercial license from Artifex Software. For commercial licensing, please contact: In the U.S. and all parts of the world except Europe: Miles Jones Director of Marketing Artifex Software Inc. 454 Las Gallinas Ave., suite 108 San Rafael, CA 94903 U.S.A. voice +1-415-492-9861 fax +1-415-492-9862 e-mail: dir.mktg@arsoft.com In Europe, as a representative of Artifex Software: quick System Service Christoph Strozyk Sprockhoeveler Str. 55 58455 Witten Germany Tel. +49-2302-28133-0 Fax. +49-2302-28133-6 e-mail: chris@quicksys.net (quickSyS also provides commercial support for the free versions.) If you have any questions about any of the information in this document, please contact: Aladdin Enterprises P.O. box 60264 Palo Alto, CA 94306 U.S.A. voice phone +1-415-322-0103 fax +1-415-322-1734 ghost@aladdin.com Appendix: The GNU General Public License ---------------------------------------- Older versions of Ghostscript (version 2.6.1 and previous) were distributed with a license called the GNU General Public License (also known as the "GNU License", the "GPL", or the "copyleft"), which allowed distribution with commercial products under certain conditions. Aladdin Enterprises may choose to distribute other versions of Ghostscript with the GPL in the future; however, these versions will be identified as "GNU Ghostscript." The remainder of this Appendix applies only to versions identified explicitly as GNU Ghostscript versions; the generic name Ghostscript, when applied to versions above 2.6.1, refers to Aladdin Ghostscript, which is governed by the Aladdin Ghostscript Free Public License, not the GPL. For those unfamiliar with the GPL, we now summarize its provisions. The full GPL is included under the name COPYING in the fileset that comprises GNU Ghostscript, and can also be obtained from the Free Software Foundation (FSF), 675 Mass Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139 (U.S.A.). In case of doubt or conflict, the contents of the COPYING file or the document obtained from the FSF, not this summary, are authoritative. 1. Anyone may copy and distribute GNU Ghostscript (both source and object code), but they must distribute the source code as well as the object code (or, if they distribute only the object code, they must include an offer in writing to provide the source code at no more than reproduction cost), keep all copyright and other notices, and include the GPL with the copies. (Note that this allows anyone receiving such a copy to distribute it freely as well.) 2. Anyone may modify GNU Ghostscript, but the provisions of #1 apply to modified or derived works as well. 3. GNU Ghostscript may be "aggregated" with another program; in this case, #1 and #2 do not apply to the other program, but only to GNU Ghostscript. Provision #1 makes it much harder to have a commercial business based only on selling copies of GNU Ghostscript (as distributed with the GPL) or products that contain GNU Ghostscript, since any customer is free to make as many copies as they want for any purpose. Provision #2 effectively prevents the development of proprietary commercial products that incorporate GNU Ghostscript without a commercial license as a part, since these are "derived works" in the legal sense. Questions have arisen at times in particular cases regarding provision #3 as to whether GNU Ghostscript is "aggregated" with other parts of a commercial product, or whether the product has become a "derived work." Normally, combining GNU Ghostscript with another piece of software creates a "derived work"; we consider GNU Ghostscript to be "aggregated" with another piece of software, which we will refer to as "the application", only if all of the following conditions are met: - The code and documentation for GNU Ghostscript are physically separated from the code and documentation for the application. For electronic form, it is both necessary and sufficient to put the GNU Ghostscript code and documentation in their own directory tree(s). - GNU Ghostscript, as delivered with the application, is usable independently of the application. More precisely, if a user deletes from the computer system all files delivered with the application except those in the GNU Ghostscript directories, the user will still be able to use GNU Ghostscript as described in GNU Ghostscript's documentation. Among other things, this requires that GNU Ghostscript not call any routines in the application, and not require any data or other files supplied as part of the application. - The application calls GNU Ghostscript in a way that allows an ordinary user to substitute another program for GNU Ghostscript. (Typically this requires use of a shell script or batch file, or a system call like `exec'.) More precisely, if the user deletes from the computer system all the files in the GNU Ghostscript directories, and replaces the GNU Ghostscript executable with another program with the same name and conforming to the same documentation, the application will continue to work with it. One implication of this is that the GNU Ghostscript documentation must specify all properties of GNU Ghostscript on which the application relies; for example, if GNU Ghostscript has been modified by the addition of command line switches or language elements such as new operators, the documentation must describe any such additions that the application uses. - The conditions of the GPL are met with respect to GNU Ghostscript, including the requirement for propagation of the GPL and the requirement for delivering (or an offer to deliver) source code. Regarding this last point, the GPL clearly intends that if the distributor only offers to provide the GNU Ghostscript source code (as opposed to actually distributing the source code with every copy of the application), then they must deliver the source code in a timely way to anyone requesting it. The GPL makes it clear that if someone receives GNU Ghostscript only in its GPL-licensed form, they only have a right to distribute it if they comply with the GPL. Aladdin Enterprises, as the copyright holder, takes this requirement very seriously, and will, if necessary, take legal action to ensure that anyone distributing GNU Ghostscript with the GPL complies with the conditions set forth above.