[OSGeo-Discuss] Using GPL for geospatial software in acommercial application.

Landon Blake lblake at ksninc.com
Wed Jul 15 07:14:41 PDT 2009


Thank you for the answers Mr. Allegri and Mr. Schmidt. I believe the GPL
would be appropriate based on your comments, since the scripts are being
interpreted and I am not distributing the consuming programs. 

I will see if I can do some more research on this topic.

Landon
Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268
Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Christopher
Schmidt
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 5:17 AM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Using GPL for geospatial software in
acommercial application.

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 04:12:14PM -0700, Landon Blake wrote:
> I'm working on a group of AutoLISP scripts for IntelliCAD and AutoCAD
> that increase cooperation between these CAD programs and FOSS GIS
> software. (For example: One set of my scripts allows CAD users to
export
> drawing geometry in OGC WKT format.)
> 
>  
> 
> I'd like to release these scripts under Version 3 of the GPL, but I'm
> not sure if this is possible. The scripts are read by proprietary CAD
> programs, and I don't have the power to release the code for these
> programs under the GPL.

The GPL requirements for this case are only when you 'distribute' the
work.  I'm assuming you don't expct that people will take your scripts, 
build them into the CAD programs, and then 'distribute' them togther. So
long as that is the case, it seems likely that this won't be an issue:
your code is GPL, and you're not 'shipping' their code, or at least not
outside 'mere aggregation' (which doesn't drag in derivative clauses).

So, I can't see any likely problems with this.

IANAL,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer
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