making money off your GPL-ed code

Bruce Perens bruce at va.debian.org
Wed May 19 14:54:41 UTC 1999


From: "Pat St. Jean" <psj at cgmlarson.com>
> I gave up BECAUSE of the GPL.  I can't make any money off of
> that code with programs that I DON'T want to release the source for.

No, you have been given wrong information. You may apply any number of
licenses, in parallel, to your own work. You can apply a proprietary
license and the GPL to the work at the same time, and distribute them
to different customers. If you create a new version under a proprietary
license only, the GPL recepients have no right to that version.

It is _only_ in the case where you are distributing the work of _other_people_
that you must heed the GPL on the code. You can do anything you want with
software for which you own the copyright, except for one thing: if a GPL
recepient aswks for source, you must give them source for the _version_they_
_have_.

This is a common misconception. Go back to work on the GPL code and make as
much money as you want on it with other licenses at the same time. You will
not be violating the GPL.

	Thanks

	Bruce



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