Re: Is CVS free for commercial development?

[Lan Barnes]

Matthew Riechers wrote:
> 
> Peter Ring wrote:
> >
> > PS: I wonder whether a cvs client could be developed in a fashion that would
> > make it not subject to the terms of GPL? This might be useful for
> > interfacing non-GPL (BSD-style absolutely-no-strings-attached or more
> > proprietary) software to cvs repositories.
> 
> As long as the client doesn't link directly to cvs code, you are ok. You
> would either have to write your own code to handle the connection
> protocol, or implement it as a simple wrapper to the cvs binary.
> 

I fail to see why anyone would want to do that. Go to http://www.gnu.org
and read the GPL (or even better, have your lawyer read it). Yes, CVS is
GPL and so are many of its clients, but this fact has absolutely no effect
on the license status of any software source maintained in a CVS
repository. So writing a new client just to be something other than GPL
makes no sense.

{NB: IANAL, but recent stories on /. and elsewhere indicate that the
Microsoft EULA for the .NET SDK may forbid the use of GPL software tools in
conjunction with the SDK. If this is true and is enforceable, then using
CVS or its GPL'ed front ends for archiving your own .NET SDK source code
may violate your EULA.}

-- 
Lan Barnes                 address@hidden
Icon Consulting, Inc       858-273-6677

First they ignore you,
 Then they laugh at you,
  Then they fight you,
   Then you win.
               - Gandhi