GPL Restrictions

The GPL is slightly more restrictive with commercial code than your article makes out. Compiling in a GPL licensed static library certainly violates the GPL unless you release all of your source code, and it is generally thought that this also applies to dynamic linking.

Take the GPL licensed FFTW for example ( www.fftw.org ). They also offer non-free licenses and state in their FAQ that:

The non-free licenses are for companies that wish to use FFTW in their products but are unwilling to release their software under the GPL (which would require them to release source code and allow free redistribution). Such users can purchase an unlimited-use license from MIT. Contact us for more details.

We could instead have released FFTW under the LGPL, or even disallowed non-Free usage. Suffice it to say, however, that MIT owns the copyright to FFTW and they only let us GPL it because we convinced them that it would neither affect their licensing revenue nor irritate existing licensees.

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Clearly the GPL has been chosen over the LGPL as it does force complete source code disclosure whereas the LGPL with dynamically linked libraries certainly does not.

conn

Wow! Nice article man! It almost made me cry there! Wow, yea, I agree totally, these big corporations re just evil. It takes too much effort to be creative, too much money to spend which would lower the profit, so why not take what's already done and proven solid - open source. Why not, after all, who cares about all the geeks sweating over their keyboards and offering the fruits of their effort to the world to benefit.
It's expensive to be M$, or any big corporation. All those private jets and waste on luxury, leave very little left to invest in actual coding effort. So why not take what you need from where it's free, get the job done. Who's gonna ever know? Not like anybody will have access to the source code to reveal the profanity. In the end you can smile from above the silly crowd and call yourself innovative. Innovative. Hmm, somehow these words immediately make me think of the worse, a guy with dorky glasses, semi mature voice, half of a man, but what a tyrant. "I love this company!"

leaks more than a sieve?

There is another problem for all the anti-virus companies. Many people are discovering that by keeping up to date with patches and NOT visiting risky web sites they just don't need virus checking software at all. If there is a major move towards web services such as provided by Google, where the hosting company protects the users, the demand for anti-virus protection will drop even lower.


Then there is always the possibility that Microsoft will write an operating system that leaks more than a sieve.