[omniORB] OmniOrb for commercial use

[Duncan Grisby]

On Thursday 6 May, "Phil Lewis" wrote:

> I have been following this list and the OmniOrb web site for a couple of
> months, and would like to know if anyone here has any experience using
> OmniOrb in reall life environments? And if so, what have those experiences
> been?

I'll let others answer that...

> Also, I find the GNU licences very confusing. Much as I support the FSF and
> the open source movement, I am in the unfortunate position of working for a
> company that charges for its software (that's how we pay the wages of myself
> and the other programmers). Does this prohibit me from distributing OmniOrb
> to our clients> Or can I still distribute it providing I give adequate
> notice/sources etc.?

The only parts of omniORB under the GNU General Public License (GPL)
are omniidl2, omniNames, and the small tools like catior. All of the
omniORB run-time libraries are under the Library General Public
License (LGPL). The LGPL explicitly allows you to link the libraries
with closed-source code without having to open that code. The only
linking restriction is that you have to allow the users to replace the
libraries with different versions. As long as you use shared
libraries, rather than static linking, this is trivial.

The output of omniidl2 is analogous to the output of tools like bison
-- you are explicitly permitted to link it with your code with no
restrictions.

To comply with the two licenses, you must include a notice that you
use omniORB, and include a copy of the licences. You must also either
supply the omniORB source with your product, or allow the users to
obtain a copy free of charge through the same route that they obtained
the product.

If you modify omniORB in any way, you must distribute your changes in
source form under the terms of the GPL (or LGPL for the libraries). We
would also appreciate it if you submitted changes back to us so we can
consider including them in our release.


HTH,

Duncan.

-- 
 -- Duncan Grisby  \  Research Engineer  --
  -- AT&T Laboratories Cambridge          --
   -- http://www.uk.research.att.com/~dpg1 --