[OT] Can a commercial company use software with GPLv2 for free?

[Greg Freemyer]

Mohammed Gamal <m.gamal005 at gmail.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>It also depends on what you mean by 'use'. If it is 'using' the GPLv2
>code in your commercial software projects then you can not do that
>unless your code is also GPL.

That is not very clear.

You can write and sell a proprietary program that lives on a linux appliance.  Then sell the appliance for whatever you want.

You can write and sell a proprietary program that uses the system() call to invoke gplv2 programs.

You can write and NOT sell/distribute a proprietary program that links to a GPLv2 library.

You can NOT write a proprietary program that lifts lines of code from gplv2 source and drops it in your code. 

And don't forget LGPL allows linking from commercial software.  That resolves the first NOT above.  A lot of libraries use a LGPL license not a GPL license for that reason.

Greg
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