Page 1 of 1
License
Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 2:12 am
by volomike
So if one makes a piece of software to sell, can they include SwiftMailer inside (along with required GPL stuff) without fees? Or, if there's a dependency on SwiftMailer, are they required to just tell people to download it separately?
Re: License
Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 2:25 am
by Salaria
Hi,
SwiftMailer is under GPL (GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE) You can use it, Modify it and distribute it free. You can add this to your application and sell bundled with your application. But you can not sell SwiftMailer individualy.
I think this will help. Ig you want to know more about its licensing then read the LICENSE.GPL file.
Re: License
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:18 am
by fornous
Salaria wrote:Hi,
SwiftMailer is under GPL (GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE) You can use it, Modify it and distribute it free. You can add this to your application and sell bundled with your application. But you can not sell SwiftMailer individualy.
I think this will help. Ig you want to know more about its licensing then read the LICENSE.GPL file.
This is missleading and not fully true.
The software is GNU Lesser General Public License v3 - it means you can use, modify and distribute it free even bundled with your application, but your application must be released under the same licence then (you can get paid for it).
You have second option - to sell your product and separatly distribute this library to your buyer. The library must be installed so that any other application can use the library same way as yours - it means no modification - only standard calls.
Re: License
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:32 am
by Christopher
fornous wrote:The software is GNU Lesser General Public License v3 - it means you can use, modify and distribute it free even bundled with your application, but your application must be released under the same licence then (you can get paid for it).
This may be misleading too ... but IANAL.
I am not sure if a PHP web application using SwiftMailer requires that the whole application needs to be GPLv3? Is it considered static or dynamic link?
It seems like since the source is being distributed, you would need to provide a notice of the SwiftMailer GPLv3 software. And you could not limit the use of the SwiftMailer library by the end user in any way that was inconsistent with the license. It could be redistributed. So it could not be covered by and contracts or licenses you had on the rest of the application. But you could still charge money for your application, even it SwiftMailer was freely redistributable.
Re: License
Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 3:10 am
by fornous
In my opinion Lesser GPL has been found for binary compiled libraries - to let proprietary apps using it without changing its own license program and to achieve wider usage (better and proven feedback -> better software quallity). The original thought was oriented on *.dll (*.so) files. Thus the application could use it without without integration. The dll file could be installed on the computer once and many applications could use it.
With dynamic (runtime compiled) languages there is a hypothetic question: "where is the difference between shared library and integration?" In case you have your php application installed within your docroot and along you have some other apps - there is always the possibility to link the library from any app you have installed (unless the end user change the directory access).
So using Lesser GPL in dynamic languages has IMHO one reason - to protected author rights. You cannot take a part of the library source code, change it and distribute it with your proprietary application. But you can have the library (as you download it) inside your project tree structure (under lib directory) and make standard calls from your application. The best way is to make a wrapper object (or proxy or facade) covering all calls. You can use this wrapper object wherever in your app. Thus you can reflect any library change quickly in one place.
Hope it will help and is true
