Re: [Swftools-common] Commercial license for swftools

[Samuel Langlois]

Chris

First, thank you for your answer.

I only asked this because some companies propose some GPL software (for 
instance GhostScript, MySQL, etc.) under a commercial license, so it 
seems to be a possibility.
Now, I am not into Legal, so I don't know whether we are covering our 
asses, or if anyone is infringing anything, but that's irrelevant to my 
request.

I'll take your answer as a "No" and move on :-)

Cheers
--
Samuel


On 24/09/2015 01:47, RDP wrote:
> 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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