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The question is specific to using these tools to develop commercial software.
The source or the binaries of the GPL licensed tool does not become part of the commercial software in anyway.
I do not want to modify the GPL licensed tool.
For example, an C/C++ development IDE that is licensed under GPL. Can I use this IDE to develop commercial software?
Other specific examples of tools I'd like to use are: Doxygen, Eclipse, etc.
Short answer: yes.
From Gnu Faq1
Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free
programs?
Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools
does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions,
legally, on the license you use for your code.
Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons
—for example, Bison copies a standard parser program
into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is
covered by the same license that covers it in the source code.
Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's
input inherits the copyright status of the input.
As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs.
This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of
the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without
restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools
comparable to Bison which already permitted use for non-free programs.
The GPL allows that. However, some programs or libraries may include additional restrictions. So, I think you can't answer it generally for all programs that are under GPL.
Doxygen and Eclipse are OK, though.
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I'm using AndEngine in my Android app. I found that this library is distributed under GNU Lesser GPL.
What should I write in my about view to conform this license?
http://www.gnu.org already provides that information. Here's the link for that. In this link you may find a brief explanation of how to place a program under several licenses including GNU Lesser GPL.
EDIT: I checked some examples of LGPL'ed software in Ubuntu and their about boxes.
LibreOffice just prints some copyright information in the about box. Nevertheless, they have an option just to show the license information (also available online), where it shows the following:
Licensing and Legal information
This product is made available subject
to the terms of GNU Lesser General Public License Version 3. A copy of
the LGPL license can be found below.
Jump to LGPL Version 3
Wine has the following information in its about box (also online):
Wine is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at
your option) any later version.
I think what you should do is link (ie to a web page) to the LGPL libraries you use to make it easy for your customers to access its source code if they wish. This seems to be the top priority for the FSF (the end user having the right to see the source). Other than that, it is my understanding that linking your code with this LGPL-licensed library is completely okay for a closed-source program, which is why they are discouraging the use of LGPL for new libraries now.
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i want to publish my software under a opensource license with the following conditions:
you are allowed to:
Share — to copy, distribute and
transmit the work
use a modified
version of the code in your
application
you are not allowed to:
publish modified versions of the code
use the code in anything commercial
is there a software license out there that fits my needs ?
Having a noncommercial clause is against the spirit of opensource. So no, there isn't. And if you do make one yourself then you should not be calling it opensource but instead call it a non-commercial license.
There are in fact code with the kind of licensing you are talking about and there are widely recognised by the opensource community as being non-opensource. MINIX (by Tanenbaum) is one of them. The code is freely available and public and anyone can see but have severe restrictions on re-publishing modifications. MINIX is widely considered to be a closed-source piece of code.
Lots of commercial, proprietay, closed-source embedded operating systems are actually distributed as code and have only copyright laws protecting them (instead of complex, byzantine DRM). Just the fact that people can see your source code does not make it open source.
One last example. Windows (including XP, Vista and Seven). Microsoft makes the source code Windows available to anyone who needs it for non-commercial, educational purposes provided you sign an NDA. Their source license sounds a lot like what you want. Check out the license here: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/licensing/basics/wrklicense.mspx. I doubt anyone would argue that Windows is opensource.
You can publish code under any licence you want but it will only be F/OSS, Open Source, if it complies with the OSI definition : http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd. Your conditions are incompatible in several ways.
Take note that almost all players in Open Software use OSI-compliant licences - you would be going completely against all current opinion and practice.
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I am starting an opensource project.
I want to allow the following:
Free for noncommercial use, bins and source mods, like with the GPL, but I would like to retain commercial rights for myself, and provide another license for commercial use for customers who prefer that option.
The number of licensing options seem a bit overwhelming. So my question is:
Which opensource license should I
use?
Which commercial license should I
use, if there are any standard ones
available? Or should I come up with
my own one here?
There is no problem with dual-licensing. GPL is fine for the noncommercial variant, and is widely accepted.
With the commercial one, I do not know of any standard ones. I would recommend you write one, that really suits your needs.
There is Hanselminutes Podcast on licenses here: Open Source Software Licensing with Jonathan Zuck of ACT Online. Towards the end they talk about the dual licensing of the MySQL database.
There is also a transscript of the podcast as PDF, have a look at the end of the first column on page 7.
No open source license (as defined by the Open Source Initiative) will forbid commercial use of software. You can use a version of the GPL to disallow taking your software proprietary; companies could still use it internally, or distribute it for their own purposes, but they couldn't package it up and sell it as normal shrinkwrap software. Don't use a license like Boost or BSD, as they allow unlimited commercial usage with no restrictions.
You should decide what commercial use you want to allow, and that will depend heavily on the software and what people might want to use it for.
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I have a commercial Java application which I will be distributing.
I want to use an LGPL'd java library.
I wont be modifying the library.
Does the LGPL license of that library have any impact on my application's license?
Yes, it does to a certain degree. You are e.g required to allow people to upgrade the LGPL'd library without your help. I suggest reading through the whole license yourself, as you're legally obligated to adhere to it's clauses. Know what you oblige yourself to, don't just take other people's words for it :)
As far as I understand the LGPL, no, you can distribute it however you like. You will only be linking to the library, not creating a derivative work, and the LGPL doesn't restrict linking.
There is no impact on your application. LGPL license allows inclusion in commercial application as long as the terms of the license are fulfilled (LGPL license text in the distribution, indication of the use of the library, etc).
My guess is that as long as your linking is dynamic (i.e. dynamic loading of the .dll/.so/.a/.class/whatever file at runtime), you're OK. If you statically compile your code to include the library, you're at risk of violating the license, depending on how your code is structured.
If it's Java, however, you can not link statically - it's an impossibility of the platform.
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This page summarizes different license types' terms (GPL, LGPL, MIT, BSD, etc):
http://www.codeproject.com/info/Licenses.aspx
Say I write a program for sale that uses a software under one of the licensing types where "Can be used in commercial applications:" is true, and "Can be used in proprietary (closed source) applications:" is true.
Then if the "Bug fixes / extensions must be released to the public domain:" line is true, what does it mean to me? What am I required to do?
Thank you.
This will usually mean that if you build a patch or other modification of the program and want to distribute it you must also publish the sources of that modification under a license explicitly mentioned in the program license text.
In some license types this includes both the other program and any program using that (including your program). In others (like LGPL) this will only be required only for modification made to that program, but not to your program if they are separated (LGPL is typically used for libraries and doesn't enforce publishing the library consumers).
simply:
you can sell (and release with your own commercial license) your own app built with the provided code.
but:
you can not improve on the code (of the software you are using within your app) directly and not give it to public domain (usually it is in the original license of the software).
Instead of relying on those summaries, you would be advised to carefully read the license for any open source license you plan to use in a closed source product.
For instance, LGPL does not actually require you to release source code changes to the public domain. Rather, it requires you to release them under the terms of the LGPL.
If you are nor sure that you understand the implications of a particular license, talk to your company's lawyers.