open source question

Perris Calderon

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a guess this is going to look naive, but I know nothing about open source

if a program is written for an open source os, is the program by that very liceense open source as well?
 
if a program is written for an open source os, is the program by that very liceense open source as well?

The quick answer is no

just because you write an application for an open source OS like linux, does not mean the application you write has to be open source.

Now.. if you write some changes changes to the code of said open source OS, then the code you wrote DOES become open source. But only if you are monkeying with the actual code of the open source OS you are running on top of.

There are plenty of commercial and closed source applications that run on Linux. Take Oracle for example.. last time I checked the oracle database was not open source..but it runs on linux
 
thanx fitz

is each os licensing differant?

looking at the debian licesnse it looks like if you write an app for that os the app becomes open source also

The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) is a set of guidelines that the Debian Project uses to determine whether a software license is a free software license, which in turn is used to determine whether a piece of software can be included in Debian. The DFSG is part of the Debian Social Contract. The Open Source Definition was created from the DFSG. These guidelines are:

Free redistribution
Inclusion of source code
Allowing for modifications and derived works
Integrity of the author's source code (as a compromise for the likes of TeX)
No discrimination against persons or groups
No discrimination against fields of endeavor, like commercial use
The license needs to apply to all to whom the program is redistributed.
License must not be specific to Debian, basically a reiteration of the last point.
License must not contaminate other software.
The GPL, BSD, and Artistic licenses are examples of licenses considered free.

is my interperatation wrong?
 
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debian is very very **** about licensing. Debian is probably the most backwards when it comes to licensing.

The best license to use would be the BSD 4 clause license.

Edit: Hmm didn't realiase that the word beginning with a and ending in l and being an alternative term for one's posterior was a filtered word, considering it is a very legitimate medial term.
 
[WARNING, not an expert, but what I believe I know.]

Perris, those are Debian's guidelines for including software in their distribution. They are very an4l [per LofLA] about licensing, ala their recent licensing issues with Firefox, they forked into IceWeasel [stupid].

As far as Gnu Public License software [GPL] is concerned, that is where licensing comes into play. If you modify a GPL'd piece of software you have to, by law, provide the source code because that is how the license is written.

There are also some legalese that comes along with redistributing software that includes shared libraries that are released under the GPL. E.g. if you write some software and in order to run it, you need some GPL'd libraries, if you want to statically link and distribute those libraries along with your program, you must release the source code as well. There are notable exceptions to this, including the libstdc++ libraries which are GPL, but do not require you to release your source if you statically link to it.

The other main open source license is the BSD license which allows you to create proprietary works from released source code as long as you acknowledge the source. The most common example of this is the networking stack built into Windows XP, which is BSD licensed.

Basically if you write software derived from GPL'd software, it must be GPL'd itself, if you write software derived from BSD licensed software you must acknowledge the author.
 
BSD for teh Win. As a license :p.

Answer is no, it does not become open source. But it could be, and it very respectable to make it open source and allow others to improve upon your work. Your best bet is to research what license you want to use, or what program you want to modify and see what license they use so you know where you legally stand.
 
well, that only applies if you want the software to be included in the Debian distribution it has to abide by that license..
 
thanx guys, everyone gets reps

I need mass mailer clients that will handle remote mailing off of about 30 linux servers, about 10 ip's each

any ideas?

does anyone have experience with the opt in email marketing industry?
 
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does anyone have experience with the opt in email marketing industry?

Sadly, always on the recieving end. I really shouldn't be a party to this but...

1) Mass Mailing Paseo is open source; It is an XML script which needs
2) http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&words=opt+in+mass+mailing
388 ways to annoy people for free.

Sourceforge is THE repository of open source code and programs. (Or in this case suppository.)

I wasn't sure if this was mentioned above. Open source programs and code exists for both Linux and Windows. You don't have to run a Linux distro to downlaod and run open source programs. Many have a Linux and Wndows version available.

Also under the GNU open Source liscence you can modify the code and compile a custom version just as long as as you retain the original liscence and author in the new code and do not try and sell it. If you offer a nifty enhancement to the authors they may include it in their distro with it credited to you.
 
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thanx guys, everyone gets reps

I need mass mailer clients that will handle remote mailing off of about 30 linux servers, about 10 ip's each

any ideas?

does anyone have experience with the opt in email marketing industry?

Egh, what are you doing?

It should not be hard to write something yourself in any programming language, Python or PHP would be the fastest way to do it probably.

As for opt in, it is illegal to send anyone bulk email unless they have double opted in.

That means when they signup to receive an email, you send one simple email to the recipient, and they have to reply to that email before their email is added to the list.
 

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