Is it possible/impossible to develop proprietary software to run on linux?

[Thomas Charron]

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 11:10 PM, Chris Were<cjwere at gmail.com> wrote:
> As its a legal question and a legal forum i'll flesh it out some more:
> 1) Is it possible/impossible to develop and distribute proprietary
> software to run on linux?  The software in question is to run in user
> space not kernel.

  It's not only possibly, but in widespread use.

> 2) Is it possible to distribute this proprietary software with a
> customised linux distribution, thus forming an "appliance"?
> (Documentation as to the GPL OS content and linux distribution
> contents, source for the GPL portions to be provided to customers, but
> only binaries for the
> proprietary part of the Source code)

  Yes, and in widespread use.

> I've been getting a lot of different opinions on this, and it seems a
> fundamental question:

  Whoever you've been getting your opinions from are obviously vry
unfamiliar, and haven't really looked at a Linux based system.

> If we develop an application which runs on linux (and must therefore
> link to some libraries for screen and keyboard, file and network IO),
> must that application the be GPLv2, and must we distribute source
> code?

  No, as the C runtime is a LGPL licensed product.  As long as nothing
you're pulling in is GPL, you're fine.  And even though the kernel is
GPL, it is the accepted standard for the kernel that anything running
under it is not required to conform to it's license, at least from
Linus's point of view.

> Is it at all possible to write a proprietary application to run on linux?

  I have no idea where you would get the impression that you couldn't.
 Can you write one for Windows?

> So does it come down to simply checking whether each library you link
> to has an exception or not?  Or to careful choice of development
> environment?  Or is it fullstop impossible, and am I stuck in Windows
> trying to earn a livelihood?

  You're pretty much spot on.  But it's not an exception.  If it's
under the LGPL you're golden.  If it's GPL, you have to give something
back to use it with your app (in the form of your source).

-- 
-- Thomas