Free?

[Daniel Gibson]

Am 24.10.2011 01:59, schrieb Walter Bright:
> On 10/23/2011 2:56 PM, Daniel Gibson wrote:
>> But I'd be interested in the opinions of other people in this newsgroup
>> who earn money with software development (or have done so in the past):
>> Have you ever experienced exposure to GPL'ed or proprietary software as
>> a hindrance for a job?
> 
> In once selling a license to some software I wrote for $$$, the
> licensee's lawyers grilled me about if I'd worked on the popular GPL'd
> version. I told them I hadn't, and that satisfied them that I wasn't
> trying to pass off GPL'd code as my own.
> 
> They were just doing their due diligence.
> 
> If I had worked on the GPL'd version, then I'd have had to go through a
> lot more grilling to ensure none of that code had leaked into the code I
> was selling.

Ok, this kinda makes sense, but I guess that having been exposed to the
GPL'ed version wouldn't have made the deal impossible, just harder?
(Couldn't they just compare the code or something?)
Also this wasn't about being exposed to GPL'ed software in general but
to this specific project, if I understand correctly.
And I can imagine that similar problems could have existed with other
licenses, e.g. proprietary in some constellations like "Company A
developed $software, later company B buys a license to develop it
further, maybe with the help of some of A's engineers. Then company C
also buys a license and wants experts from company A to help them - but
they need to make sure that no code from company B slips into their
codebase". Or something like that.

But I do understand that in some circumstances exposure to GPL'ed code
of a specific project could be a hinderance.

Thanks for sharing :-)

Cheers,
- Daniel