Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Using USRP/GNURADIO Commercially

[Joel Koltner]

> Your question doesn't make sense to me.  If your
> clients pay you to develop source code that derives from,
> or
> partially incorporates, GPL licensed code then they own the
> developed source, not you.  

They might "own" it, but since using GPL requires the company who paid me to 
provide the new source code (that I developed) upon request to anyone they 
provide the binaries to (and allow that person to then use it for their own 
projects or whatever), I'm not sure the term "ownership" is particularly 
meaningful at that point.

I believe a common consulting situation is where you develop some software 
using GPL'd code and provide binaries & source back to a company that only uses 
the software internally and never distributes it to anyone outside the company 
(thus no one outside the company gets the source code *nor* binaries); the GPL 
makes it clear that no one can force you to distribute your binaries if you 
don't wish to do so.  As such they might as well "own" it, I suppose.  

I realize that, with enough legal contortions, you can attempt to separate out 
"proprietary" parts covered by your own license from those that are GPL'd, 
like, e.g., the DD-WRT people did.  People have spent a huge amount of time 
arguing about whether or not doing so can is legal, but until it's tried in 
court no one really knows.  It certainly violates the *intent* of the GPL.  
(Someone with such an intent "should" be using software licensed under the 
lGPL, for instance...)

---Joel