I believe you're right, that was my conclusion as well. I'm not sure that that will accomplish what they hoped.
To continue my original example, I could, in theory, take this code, ensure that it works with arbitrary independent pseudo-services, create my own such services, under a proprietary licence, and distribute the whole as an aggregate, which is permitted by the GPL.
The author likely seeks to provide commercial licensing for those interested in integrating their pseudo-services as libraries, which would require either that they be GPLd or that the original code be licensed in some other way.
I hope the author achieves the success they hope for without the licensing and legal hell they may have set themselves up for. It can be a great disappointment to have one's work turned into someone else's success by a someone or someones with more legal and licence cunning than one's self.
(Note: that ain't me, I've just seen that exact scenario playout more than a fair few times....)
Yes, people can do that. It's inconvenient and risky, so serious customer prospects will pay to avoid it. This is one of the more common open source commercialization strategies; one of the earlier examples is Sleepycat.
PeterWhittaker|1 year ago
To continue my original example, I could, in theory, take this code, ensure that it works with arbitrary independent pseudo-services, create my own such services, under a proprietary licence, and distribute the whole as an aggregate, which is permitted by the GPL.
The author likely seeks to provide commercial licensing for those interested in integrating their pseudo-services as libraries, which would require either that they be GPLd or that the original code be licensed in some other way.
I hope the author achieves the success they hope for without the licensing and legal hell they may have set themselves up for. It can be a great disappointment to have one's work turned into someone else's success by a someone or someones with more legal and licence cunning than one's self.
(Note: that ain't me, I've just seen that exact scenario playout more than a fair few times....)
tptacek|1 year ago