Can pacman be used with non-GPL software?

zerophase · 2016-06-05 20:56:48

My employer is making an exercise machine that displays data on the exercise either as a graph, or a 3D car race simulation built in Unity 3D. (depends on the machine) Personally, I'm advocating for using Linux in place of having to support Windows, since for end users we could make everything simpler by not having a full Windows desktop running. (Plus I think programming for Linux is much less complicated most of the time, I can't stand the com port api in Windows) With Linux we can do exactly what we want without having to worry about the user escaping our app, and getting confused by the Windows desktop. The only problem is we might want to be able to update the system (Other than our app at some point) The only problem with that is the GPL.

I was thinking of using Pacman for updating the system from within Unity 3D. (Personally, I'm not involved directly with the graph app) I'm all for the GPL, and will gladly submit any changes made to Pacman back. I just don't think the employer would be ok with making the complete source code available for his apps. He might be fine with releasing just the updater wrapping around Pacman calls that gets called from within the Unity 3D app.

Can I use Pacman under the terms of the GPL if I'm calling wrappers from within our app?

Trilby · 2016-06-05 21:19:31

Why would you need to modify the source of pacman to update the system? Pacman already updates the system.

Your program does not need to be GPL to be on the same computer as pacman, or to call the pacman binary (e.g. with an exec family function).

zerophase · 2016-06-05 21:33:47

I don't think we'd have to modify it. I'm just saying if we modify anything we'd submit it back.

The only thing I'm worried about is having an update button, or having the app periodically call pacman to notify the user of available updates.

Trilby · 2016-06-05 21:40:45

So what's your question?

If you're not modifying/reusing the code and/or linking to pacman binary objects (libalpm) then the license is irrelevant. You are just calling another binary. If this weren't allowed linux distros would be divided on licenses: a terminal could only run a shell with a compatible license, and shells could only launch programs with compatible licenses.

This is not how licenses work.

zerophase · 2016-06-06 00:31:21

That answers it. Just want to make sure.

Arch Linux

#1 2016-06-05 20:56:48

Can pacman be used with non-GPL software?

#2 2016-06-05 21:19:31

Re: Can pacman be used with non-GPL software?

#3 2016-06-05 21:33:47

Re: Can pacman be used with non-GPL software?

#4 2016-06-05 21:40:45

Re: Can pacman be used with non-GPL software?

#5 2016-06-06 00:31:21

Re: Can pacman be used with non-GPL software?

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