GPL as an evaluation license

[Aviad Mandel]

More clarification is due indeed...

On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 4:34 PM, Oleg Goldshmidt <pub at goldshmidt.org> wrote:

>
> I'm writing a function library in C which I want to sell licenses for,
>> targeting a specialized industry. To make my entry point better, I plan to
>> release it under GPL (as opposed to LGPL) so that potential users can
>> evaluate it properly before making a decision.
>>
>
> This is not clear to me. With all the respect due to GPL, what makes you
> think that it will make evaluation better? Do you mean that reviewing your
> source code will allow them to evaluate it better? You can give source code
> to your potential customers under all sorts of terms.
>

It's true that I could try to write an evaluation contract, but the whole
idea here is to tempt the engineers to download my library and to try it
out. If they steal code snippets, even better. Signing a long contract (even
click "I agree") may be a chilling factor. "This is free software, released
under the GNU Public License" sounds by far less threatening to the common
programmer.

It's all in the embedded software field. Actually using the software equals
to distribute it in the company's products. As long as they run it in the
lab, it's still evaluation.

And we all like to have the source. This is an extra plus over typical
proprietary software vendors. And I need all advantages I can get.
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