Re: Binary Differencer/Patcher for OS X?
Re: Binary Differencer/Patcher for OS X?
- Subject: Re: Binary Differencer/Patcher for OS X?
- From: Chris Hanson <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 21:08:11 -0500
At 7:34 PM -0400 4/10/03, Steve Bennett wrote:
(FLAME ON -- Really, I understand the basic concept behind the GPL license,
but making GPL software completely unusable for commercial projects is
bloody annoying. I've stuck more than my share of software into the public
domain and it will be a cold day in Hell before I GPL one bit of it. GPL
software *isn't* free -- the cost is your OWN code, which is worth a lot
more... <grrr> -- FLAME OFF)
GPL'd software isn't completely unusable for commercial projects --
there's no clause in the GPL that says "you can't use covered
software commercially," or that says "you can't make money off of
covered software," despite what many people opposed to the GPL would
have you believe.
For instance, you could build a Cocoa-based bdiff or xdelta utility
that can handle application packages, prebound Mach-O executables,
etc. and then distribute proprietary patch files that can be used to
update your application. The utility itself would be covered by the
GPL, but your patch is just data. And -- especially if you support
resource forks too -- you might just wind up setting the standard for
such utilities on Mac OS X.
Now, that may be more work than you want to go through. But it isn't
*impossible* to use the GPL'd code for commercial purposes. What you
can't do is make the GPL'd code proprietary.
-- Chris
--
Chris Hanson, bDistributed.com, Inc. | Email: email@hidden
Custom Application Development | Phone: +1-847-372-3955
http://bdistributed.com/ | Fax: +1-847-589-3738
http://bdistributed.com/Articles/ | Personal Email: email@hidden
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