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I guess if you are a tool developer then you may be interested in licensing issues. If you are like me and have developed any tool beyond the most simple interface then you are likely to be using something that someone else produced whether it be some code or a control or whatever.
ADE is a complex environment and is itself freeware. This is different to free and open source. Freeware is generally copyright software that is released by the developer at no charge. The source is not likely to be available and there will be no rights for anyone to reverse engineer or modify it. Free and Open Source will generally mean that you release the software at no cost along with the source code. You may also allow others to modify this as they wish.
Under the ADE hood is a mix of my own code, commercial code (mostly GUI components) and free open source components and controls.
Today I was looking at a control that is released under the GPL v3 License. I had cause to check the meaning of this license - which is something I probably should have looked at more closely before. The GPL license is called by some 'viral'. It essentially allows anyone using it to use it for free and modify it. It does however have a bit of a sting in the tail. The viral term refers to the fact that anything covered by the GPL license can only exist in conjunction with anything else provided that everything is under the GPL license. Therefore according to this license I would have to license ADE as GPL with all that entails.
But wait it gets worse - what about all the commercial code and other free code - well that has to be GPL as well it seems. Clearly not something that can happen.
What I found more interesting is that the control concerned is a wrapper for an existing Microsoft Control. It is meaningless without it and can only work in conjunction with it. Maybe I am a cynical old ******* but under the license terms surely the Microsoft control must also be under a GPL license??
There are plenty of other free and open source licenses out there including the Lesser GPL which seems to avoid the conundrum above by not requiring everything that in the same package to be free and open source.
Right now I have contacted the author of the control I want to use asking him to give me permission to use it in freeware. I have not yet pointed out the apparent minor matter that the Microsoft control needs to be under GPL as well.
In fact one might go so far as to say that any code based on and requiring the dotNET framework ( or any similar) really cannot be under GPL
unless of course the developer of the environment is prepared to make their code free and open source 
Please note that I am not a lawyer and the purpose of this post is not to engage in long 'legalistic' debate but just to share something that had not really registered with me before.
ADE is a complex environment and is itself freeware. This is different to free and open source. Freeware is generally copyright software that is released by the developer at no charge. The source is not likely to be available and there will be no rights for anyone to reverse engineer or modify it. Free and Open Source will generally mean that you release the software at no cost along with the source code. You may also allow others to modify this as they wish.
Under the ADE hood is a mix of my own code, commercial code (mostly GUI components) and free open source components and controls.
Today I was looking at a control that is released under the GPL v3 License. I had cause to check the meaning of this license - which is something I probably should have looked at more closely before. The GPL license is called by some 'viral'. It essentially allows anyone using it to use it for free and modify it. It does however have a bit of a sting in the tail. The viral term refers to the fact that anything covered by the GPL license can only exist in conjunction with anything else provided that everything is under the GPL license. Therefore according to this license I would have to license ADE as GPL with all that entails.
But wait it gets worse - what about all the commercial code and other free code - well that has to be GPL as well it seems. Clearly not something that can happen.
What I found more interesting is that the control concerned is a wrapper for an existing Microsoft Control. It is meaningless without it and can only work in conjunction with it. Maybe I am a cynical old ******* but under the license terms surely the Microsoft control must also be under a GPL license??
There are plenty of other free and open source licenses out there including the Lesser GPL which seems to avoid the conundrum above by not requiring everything that in the same package to be free and open source.
Right now I have contacted the author of the control I want to use asking him to give me permission to use it in freeware. I have not yet pointed out the apparent minor matter that the Microsoft control needs to be under GPL as well.
In fact one might go so far as to say that any code based on and requiring the dotNET framework ( or any similar) really cannot be under GPL
unless of course the developer of the environment is prepared to make their code free and open source Please note that I am not a lawyer and the purpose of this post is not to engage in long 'legalistic' debate but just to share something that had not really registered with me before.
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