GPL & "non profit use only"

[Iain Barker]

IANAL, but in my view whether such a clause is valid depends on context
and exactly how the additional restrictions are written.

I don't think this has ever been enforced or even suggested as an
option, but it is at least interesting to note that the text of the GPL
license (rather than the code protected by the license) is also itself
protected by copyright. As the GPL V2 license states:

Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

Depending how it is being done, adding the additional "non profit"
clause could be considered a violation of the copyright on the license
text, since "changing it is not allowed". In which case FSF (as owners
of the license text, not of the covered source code) could have standing
in any subsequent legal action, even if they have no standing in the
copyright of the source code itself.

However, the validity resulting license would still be contentious, and
it's certainly not within the spirit of the "any third party" clause of
the GPL.

For example:

"   This software is protected by copyright, and is licensed for use by
non-profit entities only.
    Copyright (C) <year>  <name of author>

    Commercial use of this software is prohibited; a separate license is
required.

    Non-profit entities may redistribute it and/or modify it under the
terms of the GNU General Public License,
    as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
the License, or (at your option) any later version,
    however this non-profit statement / commerical-use restriction must
be retained in all copies. "

Something such as the above, if written such that it doesn't change the
original GPL V2 license but just acts as a 'dual license' wrapper around
it or a preamble to the main GPL license, then the above argument is
null.

But if the changes are embedded within the copy of the GPL license -
i.e. the actual license text has been modified - then the license itself
may well be invalid.

Unfortunately, as it says in the GPL section 7, an invalid license
doesn't release you from the constraints of copyright. It may leave you
with no valid license to distribute the software at all...


-----Original Message-----
From: legal-bounces at lists.gpl-violations.org
[mailto:legal-bounces at lists.gpl-violations.org] On Behalf Of Janez Pers
Sent: Monday, 15 March, 2010 15:02
To: legal at lists.gpl-violations.org
Subject: GPL & "non profit use only"

Just a short check. I bumped into such things
more than once, and would like to clean this
issue up.

If the code is GPL (and even says "V2 or later"!),
then a restriction on "non profit use only"
is meaningless, right?

For example:

http://cvlab.epfl.ch/~tola/open_source.html