NitinGupta
Right off the assembly line
For one of my softwares am trying to understand the implications of using a GPL software. For my software i need some symbolic computation like provided by GPL'd CAS like Maxima( *maxima.sourceforge.net/ ).Right now ,my program is communicating with Maxima through files i.e my program invokes maxima through a shell command and provides input files.Maxima gives output files and my program was parses them for results.So here i have my first question
1) If a program is just communicating to a GPL'd program through files.Does this program still needs to be released under GPL ? My program and GPL program are separately installed and there are no common structures/headers used by them.So can i release my program close-sourced and ask for a fee for commercial usage ?
2) communication through files is too slow.Another approach can be of starting GPL'd program (maxima in my case) in server mode and my program commuicating to it over sockets.So if i do that, will it require me to release my program under GPL ? I understand that there can be different answers depending on HOW exactly we communicate to a GPL program over sockets. But am pretty confused over this.Please help.
1) If a program is just communicating to a GPL'd program through files.Does this program still needs to be released under GPL ? My program and GPL program are separately installed and there are no common structures/headers used by them.So can i release my program close-sourced and ask for a fee for commercial usage ?
2) communication through files is too slow.Another approach can be of starting GPL'd program (maxima in my case) in server mode and my program commuicating to it over sockets.So if i do that, will it require me to release my program under GPL ? I understand that there can be different answers depending on HOW exactly we communicate to a GPL program over sockets. But am pretty confused over this.Please help.