GPL question

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Nov 08, 2006 at 09:49:28AM -0500, Madison Kelly wrote:
> Thanks for the answer!
> 
> In this case, the code in question is a small subroutine I (fully) wrote 
> for my GPL'ed project first. Now I want to use that subroutine in a 
> commercial program at work.
> 
> I realize that I can't use code I wrote for my employer in my GPL'ed 
> project. Likewise I can't use code contributed to my project by others 
> under the GPL (or similar licenses) without their express, written 
> permission (not that I would ask for it, out of principle).
> 
> The main reason I am asking is that I have written a few small, general 
> purpose subroutines that would make my work-life easier if I could use 
> them in the commercial program I work on. Nothing fancy (in this 
> specific case, a subroutine that takes a size (like '150M') and converts 
> it to the number of bytes; nothing fancy, just convenient. :)
> 
> My concern is more along the lines of:
> 
>  a) How do I make sure someone else down the road might recognize the 
> code as being from a GPL'ed project and know that it wasn't used illegally.
> 
>  b) Prevent some possible future owner of this commercial product from 
> seeing the code in my GPL'ed project and know that it was *from* the GPL 
> project, and not illegally taken from the commercial product.
> 
>  c) Breaking the law in the first place and possibly invalidating the 
> GPL license on my program or the commercial program I work on.

I would think you simply stick in a "This is copyright by Madison
Kelly".  Maybe add in a note saying that it was originally written for
project foo but was reused here by Madison Kelly.  Don't see how anyone
can argue with that.

Besides if the code is copyright by you, then the only one that can sue
anyone for using it without a license is you.

--
Len Sorensen
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