Re: GNU (GPL) license...

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jmszczap82:
Hi,
Now that I've explored it a bit, Lazarus is incredible! It's amazingly similiar to Delphi... GREAT WORK!
However, I need some clarification on the GNU (GPL) license. I'm a bit confused :/...
1. Is the GNU license and the GPL license the same thing? If not, what are the differences?
2. What/which license(s) does Lazarus use?
3. If I distribute an application developed with Lazarus, can I charge (albeit a small amount) for it? If so, is this wise or not ideal? If it's not a good idea, why not and if I can charge for my app., what are the conditions it must be released under?
4. In any case, regardless of if it's free or not, what must be contained within the distributed/distributable package?... Ie., licenses, source code, etc.
5. Whether free or not, does it need to be copyrighted? If so, why and what happens if I don't? If NOT, why and what happens if I don't?
I know I just asked a load of questions, but I feel it's important to know the legal/illegal potential behind Lazarus.
Thanks much in advance for any help/replies :)
- Justin Szczap

Lightning:
I cannot explain the hole legal stuff, but from my knowlege, FreePascal (the compiler) is OpenSource so you can modify the compiler but you must distribute the modifications, Lazarus (the IDE and LCL classes) are also OpenSource but the classes are licensed under LGPL(Lesser General Public License) and can be linked into your application without the need to distribute your code.

The general ideea is that you can compile commercial applications without distributing your source code.
You can modify Lazarus or FPC but you must distribute your changes.
You cannot say that you wrote parts of the code if you didn't.
If you compile applications using Lazarus maybe you should give a link to this web site and put the "Produced With Lazarus" image found at the bottom of this site.

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