Tech Gurus Say They'll 'Switch from Mac'

At one point in the article the "IT Pundit" Dan Turner wrote: "The APSL is not compatible with the GPL, however, because it does not force developers using it to release their software for free."

Wow. That's either a willful, malicious attack by Dan Turner, or is profoundly ignorant of the GPL. I'd love to see chapter and verse where the GPL which "forces" developers to "release their software for free", or where it forces anyone to do anything at all, for that matter. First of all, the text of the GPL explicitly approves of making money on GPL'd software, and in any case, use of the GPL is a purely voluntary decision, so how could it be "forcing" anyone?

>That's either a willful, malicious attack by Dan Turner, or is profoundly ignorant of the GPL.

I doubt that either is true, though only because "profoundly ignorant" is a very high level of ignorance indeed. The context of the article does not suggest malicious intent, so I suspect a poor understanding of the license.

You, however, are a bit guilty too.

The GPL permits you to charge money for services associated with GPL'd software, but, effectively, it forces you to give your stuff away if you:

1. Distribute it outside of your organization and 2. Incorporate other GPL-licensed software from whose authors you have not received permission to do otherwise.

That's because the GPL permits the first generation recipient to re-distribute the software without restriction. Those second and third generation distributions can bypass the original distributor.

As a rule, if you want to charge for your software, do not use the GPL. More accurately, do not GPL the specific items you wish to charge for. That, by the way, leaves a lot of room for a lot of GPL'd software.