[License-discuss] Is Web application including GPL libraries covered under GPL?

[Grahame Grieve]

About Java and GPL:

http://www.healthintersections.com.au/?p=1225

Grahame



On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 7:31 AM, MURAKAMI, Keiko <a2z at jcom.home.ne.jp>wrote:

> Thank you all,
>
> Our application are made by Java,
> so these are not tightly linked GPL libraries,
> because GPL libraries are located in another directory,
> are referred or dynamic liked at live time.
> And we never deliver the application to users,
> we run the web application on our side servers,
> all users just use our web service.
>
> I understood that license of our application covered under GPL,
> but we need not give every source code to users.
>
> Keiko
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: license-discuss-bounces at opensource.org
> [mailto:license-discuss-bounces at opensource.org] On Behalf Of Kuno Woudt
> Sent: Monday, May 13, 2013 10:04 PM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Is Web application including GPL libraries
> covered under GPL?
>
> On 12-05-13 08:08, MURAKAMI, Keiko wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > We've been developing an application on Eclipse Framework with
> > libararies covered under LGPL, GPL and Apache licenses.
> > These libraries are jxl.jar(LGPL), servlet-api.jar(GPL v2) and
> > stepcounter(Apache) and so on.
> > When we deliver our application just as Web application, by using but
> > not distributing the libraries, should we distribute it under GPL?
> > Should we be ready to show the complete source code to any user?
> > The application is not static linked.
>
> Depending on who you ask, linking to servlet-api.jar means you need to
> license your web application under the GPL.  If you run this web
> application
> on your own servers and users connect to it, you would not be obligated to
> give those users the source code, because you are not distributing the web
> application to them -- you are merely providing a service.
>
> If your application makes use of non-trivial chunks of javascript, then be
> aware that you are distributing that code to your users.  If that
> javascript
> is tightly interwoven with the rest of your web application so as to form a
> single creative work, I would argue that you ARE distributing parts of your
> web application to your users and should therefore comply with the
> conditions of the GPL -- and make the full source code available to those
> users.
>
> I am not a lawyer.  I am also not aware of any cases which would provide
> some guidance on when client-side and server-side code are sufficiently
> entangled to be considered a single creative work.
>
> -- warp.
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-- 
-----
http://www.healthintersections.com.au /
grahame at healthintersections.com.au/ +61 411 867 065
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