commercial use

[Luke Schierer]

On Jul 9, 2010, at 09:10 EDT, Max J. Pucher wrote:

> Luke, 
> 
> thanks again. I will discuss the bundling option with my development. 
> Would it bundling evn if we adapted the Pidgin source code so that it could also interact with our product, meaning giving it some additional API? We would not integrate the product, but just call this API to communicate with it and ship it bundled rather than compiled with our product. We could call other chat clients through this and Pidgin would be able to work with other product through the API. 
> 
> Freundliche Grüße,
> With my best regards,
> Max J. Pucher

Using an API to interact with a GPLed program is a sort of grey area.  The project's historical stance on the question has always been that any pidgin plugin, being sucked in and run as part of the same process in the OS, must also be under the GPL.  

I suspect though that you could use Pidgin's DBUS API or write a plugin (under the GPL) that presents a similar API, and then interact with that API from another program running as a separate process, to provide separation between the GPL'ed code and the non-GPL'ed code.  

Please keep all communication on this issue CC'ed to the development mailing list (as I have done), as this is a thorny question that could benefit from the input of other developers, and not just myself. 

Luke


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> Am 09.07.2010 um 15:01 schrieb Luke Schierer:
> 
> Due to the great many copyright holders, it is entirely infeasible to offer pidgin under any other license, even if I did not know of a few copyright holders who would refuse to go along with the idea, even if we tried.  Pidgin is, for the foreseeable future, offered only under the GPL.
> 
> That being said, the GPL's language is quite clear.  Anything that you "integrate" with Pidgin such that the result is a single product must be under the GPL.  Anything that is merely bundled with Pidgin, the way RedHat or Debian ship CDs with software under different licenses, but where the software is not in fact necessarily interdependent, need not be under the GPL.  
> 
> So long as you comply with the GPL licensing on Pidign, we have no issue with its use.
> 
> Luke
> 
> 
> On Jul 9, 2010, at 08:39 EDT, Max J. Pucher wrote:
> 
>> Luke,
>> 
>> thanks for the quick answer. Unfortunately, my corporate clients do not buy open source software yet. We are based on Berkeley DB, but purchased a license luckily before Oracle got hold of it. I have proposed OS to my customers but they say it is a security and support risk they can not afford. We do provide a few components as open source but not the whole system. We would not charge additional for this feature, provide the source and copyright notice to our customers and make Pidgin better known. We would also feed all our expansions and improvements back to you. 
>> 
>> Would this be sufficient to be considered open source? 
>> 
>> Freundliche Grüße,
>> With my best regards,
>> Max J. Pucher
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Am 09.07.2010 um 13:55 schrieb Luke Schierer:
>> 
>> Pidgin is offered under the GPL.  This means that you can integrate it with your system, so long as you offer the system under the GPL. 
>> 
>> Luke
>> 
>> On Jul 9, 2010, at 05:54 EDT, Max J. Pucher wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> I am looking for an open source universal chat client to integrate with our system.
>>> Does Pidgin offer such a license?
>>> 
>>> Freundliche Grüße,
>>> With my best regards,
>>> Max J. Pucher
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Support at pidgin.im mailing list
>>> Want to unsubscribe?  Use this link:
>>> http://pidgin.im/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support
>> 
>> 
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>