Leaderboard

I passed my practical CLED recently on the second attempt, I wrote about it here: http://delacor.com/how-to-prepare-for-the-cled-exam/ I wanted to reply to this old post, because I wanted to let others know that using the sample projects might help, provided that: * you are familiar with them * you know what to strip to convert them from a sample project template into an actual project template I hope this helps people preparing for the CLED. Regards, Fab

What a FUD! SubVersion has never been licensed under the GPL license. It was developed by CollabNet and distributed under a fairly liberal license. Later it got transferred to the Apache Software Foundation which distributes software under the Apache License which is also NOT comparable to GPL. Even then the GPL does not cover the license of code maintained with a GPL licensed tool, but only code you would link in any way with that tool. And in the case of the Linux kernel there is even an explicit exception that applications running on Linux and therefore technically linking to the kernel in some way (they need to do kernel system calls for just about everything that interacts with the system) do not fall under the GPL unless the application developer elects to use the GPL for his software. As to VIPM it is under a commercial license from JKI. The OpenG libraries that are also used inside VIPM as well as being installed through VIPM are all under a BSD license, except the shared library parts that I wrote, which I left under LGPL. Technically this has no influence on any application developed with such OpenG libraries. The VI parts are BSD licensed and allow you to do almost anything with it except claiming you wrote them yourself and they require you to somewhere put a copyright notice that your application uses libraries from OpenG. The LGPL licensed shared libraries in those tools don't taint your application either since they are dynamically linked as a library and since LGPL explicitly exempts any software that uses such a library in such a way from any obligation to be open sourced itself, you are fully safe there. The main limitation the LGPL license has on those libraries is that you can't grab the C source code for them and create your own shared library from it and not open source it under the LGPL (or GPL) yourself. I feel this is a fair limitation. If someone takes that code and improves it in any way I want a chance that this improvement is returned to the community. If you use Tortoise SVN then yes that is distributed under the GPL but even then claiming that since your source files pass through Tortoise SVN somehow they are suddenly also GPL licensed is a total bullshit. It's analogous to claiming that any car driving through your private road automatically is owned by you from that point on. You may forbid other cars to drive on that road and get a ruling from a judge that anyone still driving there without your consent can get a fine but you don't automatically own them. Actually I think it is even more analogous to anyone driving on the public road in front of your house being suddenly liable to you for the mere fact of driving there!

The usual disclaimers apply (i.e. "I'm not a lawyer"), but... I am absolutely positive that: If you're just using a GPL'ed tool to manage your code or your workflow (for example, source control) but your code doesn't actually need the tool to function, then you are not required to apply the GPL license to your own code and share it. On the other hand, if you incorporate a GPL'ed library into your code or if you link your code to it (for example, using the GPL package from VIPM), you are required to apply the GPL license to your own code and share it. Your IT department has misunderstood (or is misrepresenting) the GNU GPL. Wrong. Using a GPL'ed tool for source control does not make your code dependent on the tool. Thus, you are not required to apply the GPL license to your code and you don't have to share it. Here are some examples in industry: The source code for Microsoft Windows is now managed under Git (https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/24/microsoft-now-uses-git-and-gvfs-to-develop-windows/). Git is under the GPL license (https://git-scm.com/about/free-and-open-source), but Microsoft is not required to apply the GPL to the Windows source code. National Instruments uses Linux Real-Time in many of its devices, such as CompactRIOs. Linux is under the GPL license, but... NI is not required to apply the GPL to the CompactRIO software's source code. If you write software to run on a Linux-based CompactRIO, you are not required apply the GPL to your source code. (Side note that is irrelevant to your main issue, but is still useful to know: SVN is not licensed under the GNU GPL! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion Rather, it uses the Apache license, which is more permissive than GPL. Apache-licensed code is permitted in commercial/proprietary code. It is the TortoiseSVN client that is GPL: https://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/tsvn-preface-source.html ) Correct. Your code uses the GPL'ed VIPM package as a library, so your code must also be licensed under the GPL, which means you must make your source code available to your users.

As usual thank you Mark!