Re: [Swftools-common] Commercial license for swftools

[RDP]

Sam,

You are not infringing the LGPL ( as that was implemented for the
specific purpose of allowing linking to unmodified GPL software), but
you would of course be infringing the terms of the GPL itself, unless
you also release the source code of your application.

The GLP *is* in effect a Copyright license, one that confers
irrevocable rights and freedoms to users of any software released
under its terms. Since the SWFTools suite happens to be one such
beast, ergo it is protected under this license.  As such, you cannot
calmly just re-license it because it doesn't happen to fit nicely in
with your commercial needs and plans!

<snip>
more and more commercial customers are getting nervous about the GPL components
</snip>

Really?  How so?  I'd have thought the converse was true these days.

Or Is this merely a case of Alfresco attempting to cover its ass,
should some of your 'commercial customers choose to meander down the
litigation route, per chance
things go badly wrong? [partly tic]  ;o)

Regards,


Chris.

On 23 September 2015 at 17:51, Samuel Langlois
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Hello
>
> Would it be possible to get a commercial license for SWFTools, from its
> copyright owner(s) ?
> We would like to redistribute it, but not under the GPL.
>
> Here is a bit of context: Alfresco is an Enterprise Content Management
> system, and we have been shipping SWFTools executables (unmodified) as part
> of the installer, calling them on the command line to perform some
> transformations on documents. Alfresco is dually licensed: LGPL and
> Commercial.
> We read http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation and we
> think that we are not infringing the GPL by doing this.
> But lately, more and more commercial customers are getting nervous about the
> GPL components, so we are investigating whether we could "retro-license"
> SWFTools under a commercial license, without changing our software.
> So, it's not a legal decision but a business one: we are willing to pay to
> avoid pleading to lawyers about the GPL.
>
> Would that be possible? I've seen the question asked several time, but the
> latest answer I could find was 'Not yet', back in January 2007.
>
> Thank your
> --
> Samuel Langlois
>
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