On Wednesday 19 May 2004 5:04 pm, Sprafke Uwe wrote:
> Dear Sirs,
>
> is ethereal only for private use or can I use ethereal also in
> commercial business cases?
Ethereal is released under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). As I
understand it, (I understand it well, but I don't want to be quoted as
an expert or an authority in a court of law.):
You can _use_ Ethereal for any purposes, without restriction, so long as
you do not modify or distribute it or any part of it outside your
company.
You can modify Ethereal for the sole use of your own company without
restriction.
If you want to modify Ethereal or incorporate it within your own
product, and distribute that product outside your company, then you can
only do so under the terms of the GPL. See
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
If you wish to do this, then please talk to us. It will cost everyone
less if we resolve any objections in the design phase rather than when
it's on the market.
The ultimate authority is the GPL itself.
> What is the price for a license for commercial use?
Ethereal is only available under the GPL. Since it's many authors retain
their copyrights, and several have gone on record as saying that their
code is only to be distributed under the GPL, this situation almost
certainly will not change.
--
Richard Urwin
