License

Alan Coopersmith Alan.Coopersmith at Sun.COM
Fri Sep 23 08:30:17 PDT 2005


kartikay malhotra wrote:
> I've developed an application using Xserver source code. This 
> application called for some changes in the source files. I wish to sell 
> this application software for a price.

You should consider consulting a lawyer as part of the necessary expenses
then.

> I've read through the licenses.  The modified files are copyrighted by 
> different organizations/individuals,
> namely XFree86, a certain Keith Packard, etc. However, none of these are 
> covered under GPL.

Correct, nothing in the software distributed by X.Org should be covered
by the GPL.

> Provided I abide by the conditions in the copyright (which often 
> requires including the Copyright Notice in the source and binary files), 
> can I sell the application without making the source code Open Source? 

Quite a few companies already have and continue to do so, including IBM,
HP, Sun, SGI, etc.

> Does GPL get implicitly applied because any library file shall finally 
> be part of the XServer, and built upon the original source?

But nothing in the X server is GPL, so how would the GPL ever enter the
picture?    If you're using or linking GPL code from another source,
that's something you'll have to consider, but it won't be from X.Org sources.

-- 
	-Alan Coopersmith-           alan.coopersmith at sun.com
	 Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering



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