CDD: How Well Are You Talking To Your Customers?

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CDD Version 0.1.0, PHP Version 5.2.9

License

CDD is Copyright 2004, P. Simon Tuffs, All Rights Reserved. The software and documetatation are licensed to you under terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), which is available for viewing here.

Interpretation

We are not lawyers, and what follows is not intended as legal advice. However, we did write this software. Our interpretation of the GPL as regards your use of CDD is as follows:

You can download and use CDD in your web-site, without you having to place your web-site content under the GPL. By using CDD you have merely placed it on the same computer as your web-site content (aggregated it), and you are not distributing a modified form of the software.
If you download and modify CDD to enhance its capabilities, and then you use that modified version in your web-site, you have in-effect published the modified version and are now required to make that modified version available under terms of the GPL (but not your web-site content itself).

If you're worried by any of this, consult a laywer. Good luck finding one who understands the concepts of Free Software.

Why GPL?

Why not? Firstly, CDD makes great use of Flat-File DataBase FFDB. There are approximately 3200 lines of code reused from FFDB, CDD contributes approximately another 1800. Using FFDB greatly accelerated the development of CDD, and makes CDD a database-free tool, greatly enhancing its portability and simplifying integration. Minor changes had to be made to FFDB to integrate it with CDD, hence CDD became GPL.

For a tool like CDD, which has a wide potential for reuse, we believe the GPL is the appropriate license, but we caution you to beware of the ramifications of the GPL before integrating CDD into a proprietary product.

We are considering offering CDD as a service for commercial users, which by the nature of 'separate address-spaces' would allow properietary/commercial products to leverage CDD without suffering the consequences of the GPL license.