[MUD-Dev] GPL (was:Libs for 3D Client/Servers)

[Vincent Archer]

According to ghovs:

> I've actually heard of people releasing stuff under GPL for
> non-profit use, and allowing anyone planning something else to
> negotiate a commercial license.
 
> This involved non-MMORPG software, but I don't see how it couldn't
> work just as well for this.

You may certainly release under multiple licenses. However, it
raises a major problem.

The chief use of the GPL license is that you want to benefit from
any work done out there by people on the software, and reuse what
they do.  As they work under the GPL, the code they will submit will
be under the GPL terms.

Which means you can fold it back into the GPL client, but you cannot
fold it into the non-GPL commercial one. Well, you can, but you have
to track each code contributor one by one, and obtain from them a
license to get that code in, which is slow and expensive. And you
have to do that even if it's a single line of code that the
programmer submitted as a patch to fix an error.

So, this works only if you do not use code contributed by external
people, in which case, the GPL is not the correct license to
use. Using the GPL leads to a fork, in which you have the GPL
software on one side, and the commercial at the other, and they
drift.

--
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)
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