Comment by mugsie
9 years ago
I will give an example where the GPL hurts some projects:
I work on a OpenStack project that does DNS. We have plugable drivers for the different software out there - PowerDNS, Bind9, nsd, etc.
One of the people deploying our software wanted (or needed? - there was some weird legal / support issue) to plugin into Nominum.
Now, to even look at the API ref, or use the Nominum python lib, you need to have a support contract, and agree to not release them. If we were GPL, that user would not be able to use our project, but because we were Apache they could write an internal driver, and still have the same API as other OpenStack users.
> Now, to even look at the API ref, or use the Nominum python lib, you need to have a support contract, and agree to not release them. If we were GPL, that user would not be able to use our project, but because we were Apache they could write an internal driver, and still have the same API as other OpenStack users.
I'm not sure if by "internal" you meant that they were only using it internally. If they're not distributing outside their organization, they have no obligations under the GPL.
Otherwise, yes, the GPL does not allow for distribution under an NDA, because it adds additional restrictions.
Or maybe they would choose to work with OpenStack and discontinue their relationship with a draconian and backward company that locks their API behind a NDA