Lazarus
Miscellaneous => Other => Topic started by: greenzyzyzy on July 24, 2020, 03:36:35 pm
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can i use lazarus to make shareware or business ware for registry fee?
need to open source?
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Please, read the FAQs
https://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Faq#Can_I_make_commercial_applications_with_Lazarus.3F (https://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Faq#Can_I_make_commercial_applications_with_Lazarus.3F)
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thank you very much.
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https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Faq#Licensing (https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Faq#Licensing)
In shorts, it means:
1. You can use Lazarus to build freeware/shareware, commercial/business software
2. The software do not have to be released as open source
3. But if you use any third party library, you have to check their license first
Additionally:
4. The default-installed libraries (LCL) are in LGPL with exception, you can use it to build closed/commercial software
5. But if you improved/modified any LCL or Lazarus code and wish to publish the unit or the-modified Lazarus, you have to conform with its license, with usually means releasing it as open source
6. Lazarus comes with third party components (non-LCL), which is not enabled by default. If you want to use it, you have to check their license first.
That's what I knew. Correct me if I'm wrong.
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As others said, the (unmodified) LCL is fine (TForm, TButton, TLabel, and similar)
With those you can build your app, sell it for millions, and keep all of it (except taxes, but that's not our fault).
Other components you need to check.
- SynEdit for example existed before lazarus, so it has (must have) the license from the original, which is (please check / from memory) MPL/GPL)
- Including code from the IDE (e.g. ide directory): GPL (but its not a packages, so you need to copy the files, unlikely.
- Including code form the debugger(s): GPL
- Code from the designer: ...
- Pascal Script: See readme and REMObject's license
If you look at the project inspector, you see the packages used.
You can open each package (and from there further dependencies of more packages) and check the license.
And yes, it would be nice, if there was an easier way to get an overview....
Anyone wants to contribute?
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If I understand correctly, any software developed under GPL (Lazarus), can be commercial and sold. But, once the software is released, anyone can copy it, distribute it for free, or for a fee. Also, you may be required to provide the source code. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is how GPL reads to me. If I am right, it would be utterly stupid to write commercial software using Lazarus. Throughout the GPL licence it states the purpose of GPL is to provide full access to all derivative software by giving all receivers of that software the right to modify and distribute it. It states clearly that the purpose of the licence is not to protect software from distribution, but to allow it to be distributed to the fullest extent.
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If I understand correctly, any software developed under GPL (Lazarus), can be commercial and sold. But, once the software is released, anyone can copy it, distribute it for free, or for a fee. Also, you may be required to provide the source code. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is how GPL reads to me. If I am right, it would be utterly stupid to write commercial software using Lazarus. Throughout the GPL licence it states the purpose of GPL is to provide full access to all derivative software by giving all receivers of that software the right to modify and distribute it. It states clearly that the purpose of the licence is not to protect software from distribution, but to allow it to be distributed to the fullest extent.
Your understanding is wrong on several counts. Most importantly, as earlier responses have pointed out. the first FAQ under licensing states clearly, "Yes, the LCL is licensed under the LGPL with an exception, which allows you to link to it statically without releasing the source of your application."
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Your understanding is wrong on several counts. Most importantly, as earlier responses have pointed out. the first FAQ under licensing states clearly, "Yes, the LCL is licensed under the LGPL with an exception, which allows you to link to it statically without releasing the source of your application."
Exactly.
Redenegue seems to know GPL well and I believe he knows LGPL, too. His comment looks like intentional FUD to me.
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If I understand correctly, any software developed under GPL (Lazarus), can be commercial and sold. But, once the software is released, anyone can copy it, distribute it for free, or for a fee. Also, you may be required to provide the source code. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is how GPL reads to me. If I am right, it would be utterly stupid to write commercial software using Lazarus. Throughout the GPL licence it states the purpose of GPL is to provide full access to all derivative software by giving all receivers of that software the right to modify and distribute it. It states clearly that the purpose of the licence is not to protect software from distribution, but to allow it to be distributed to the fullest extent.
Roughly that is correct, if your license assumptions were true.
But actually only the IDE is GPL, the rest (the libraries that you ACTUALLY link too) is LGPL+exception which is aeons more mild.
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But actually only the IDE is GPL, the rest (the libraries that you ACTUALLY link too) is LGPL+exception which is aeons more mild.
And the compiler itself (also GPL'd).
But indeed, LGPL with linker exception is not even more mild, you do not have to reveal any sourcecode if you do not include - including parts of - the compiler or one of the IDE's to be included in your distributions.
For closed source boils down to:
- if you need a compiler or IDE to be included in closed source: write your own! (can be done with FPC/Lazarus)
- everything else should not pose any problems.
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Your understanding is wrong on several counts. Most importantly, as earlier responses have pointed out. the first FAQ under licensing states clearly, "Yes, the LCL is licensed under the LGPL with an exception, which allows you to link to it statically without releasing the source of your application."
Exactly.
Redenegue seems to know GPL well and I believe he knows LGPL, too. His comment looks like intentional FUD to me.
No, I suggest that he does not understand it.
If A were to write something incorporating a GPL library, compile it and sell it to B, then B would have the right to demand the source. I believe that B would not have the right to redistribute the binaries that he was supplied (example case: the binaries came with a physical dongle and the open-source library to query its validity), and in practical terms he might lack the expertise or tools to build the sources into a binary which he could then redistribute.
I'm sure that most of us have been in the position of getting something from Sourceforge, Github or some academic archive and discovering that it would take more time to port it to available tools than to reimplement it from scratch.
So I regret that Redenegue appears to have jumped in with all four feet bearing a misinformed understanding, but I do not believe that he is wielding malicious FUD.
MarkMLl