This is a read-only archive of the inkscapeforum.com site. You can search for info here or post new questions and comments at Hello,
I'm currently evaluating Inkscape and some other commercial tools for use in the commercial software of the company I work for. As far as I understand, the GNU GPLv2 license regulates copying, distribution and modification of inkscape - but what if we want to incorporate some features in our own software?
What we want to use inkscape for, is to transform PDF documents, provided by our customers, into SVG and to feed this SVG into our software; so we essentially abuse PDF as a transport format, because that's often all our customers can provide.
I don't think that this is covered by the GNU license? How to proceed in this case - is there some organization managing the commercial use of inkscape, collecting fees, royalties etc. or is "incorporation" a no go topic?
Thanks in advance!
Commercial use not covered by GNU GPLv2
Re: Commercial use not covered by GNU GPLv2
Hello,
I have just gotten an answer from the Free Software Foundation; to say it in short: upstream software has to provide the same type of license, i.e. no incorporation of free software into commercial software (unless your commercial software is for free as well
) ). The only way to use the software is to ask the copyright holders. That seems, in a way, to make pretty much sense to me.
I have just gotten an answer from the Free Software Foundation; to say it in short: upstream software has to provide the same type of license, i.e. no incorporation of free software into commercial software (unless your commercial software is for free as well
) ). The only way to use the software is to ask the copyright holders. That seems, in a way, to make pretty much sense to me.-
generatemutate
- Posts: 39
- Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2012 5:48 am
Re: Commercial use not covered by GNU GPLv2
Don't forgot there are two types of free when its comes to software-
1) free as in the freedom to view the source code
2) free as in free beer
from what I understand the FSF is about promoting the first type. Hence you could charge for a tool taking PDF to SVG (that incorporates part of inkscape) as long as the the source code is available to view.
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ#What_License_is_Inkscape_released_under.3F
Are you selling software or a service, it isn't clear from your description? I believe can make money from using Inkscape (or part of), this doesn't effect access to the source code.
If you do make a bunch of money from inkscape you should consider making a donation
http://inkscape.org/donate.php?lang=en
1) free as in the freedom to view the source code
2) free as in free beer
from what I understand the FSF is about promoting the first type. Hence you could charge for a tool taking PDF to SVG (that incorporates part of inkscape) as long as the the source code is available to view.
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ#What_License_is_Inkscape_released_under.3F
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991 [2]. In short, this means you are free to use and distribute Inkscape for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, without any restrictions. You are also free to modify the program as you wish, but with the only restriction that if you distribute the modified version, you must provide access to the source code of the distributed version.
Are you selling software or a service, it isn't clear from your description? I believe can make money from using Inkscape (or part of), this doesn't effect access to the source code.
If you do make a bunch of money from inkscape you should consider making a donation
http://inkscape.org/donate.php?lang=en