At Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:50:39 +0530,
nitin gupta wrote:
>
> Please pardon me if this is not the right forum for this question but
> i couldn't find any other place for it.For one of my educational
> softwares ,i needed to show symbolic computations like as done by
> maxima.For that purpose, am calling maxima from a shell script of my
> source code.But since maxima is GPL'd, am not sure whether i too need
> to release my software code under GPL.
>
> 1) I don't static/dynamic link to maxima i.e i don't compile my
> software against the maxima software.
> 2) I don't distribute Maxima.It have to be downloaded and installed
> separately by user.
> 3) My program runs a script which finds maxima's installation path and
> updates its path in some of my other configuration scripts.
> 4) My program creates a maxima_input text file and invokes maxima.
> Maxima outputs another maxima_result text file.My program parses
> maxima_result file and shows formatted result in my program GUI
> window.Thus, only thing my program knows about maxima is the formats
> of maxima input/output files i.e maxima command formats.
>
> Do you think i can release my program closed-source and charge a fee
> for it ? Please guide.
No, you're not required to use GPL for your code
if the conditions above apply.
Also, you should know that GPL allows you
to charge a fee for your programs.
Please, consult the GNU Licenses FAQ at
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
--
Yours sincerely,
Alexey Beshenov <al at beshenov.ru>