Gnu ghostscript is part of the gnu project and is now derived from gpl ghostscript. Ghostscript is the name of a set of software that provides. My uncertainty is fed by this post about mongodb which is agpl and even more by the comments below. May 11, 2017 plaintiff alleges that defendant used ghostscript, did not obtain a commercial license, and represented publicly that its use of ghostscript was licensed under the gnu gpl. However, not being a lawyer, and actually not having read the whole license, i can t understand what exactly you can do freely and what not with agpl. Both the 32bit and 64bit versions of ghostscript are included in this. I am struggling to download ghostscript lite for bullzip. Trusted by the worlds leading technology and services companies for over 30 years. Download recommended tool to safely and completely remove gpl ghostscript from your computer how can i remove gpl ghostscript. Ghostscript is a high quality, high performance postscript and pdf interpreter and rendering engine.
The objective of the project is to bring bestofbreed security to ghostscripts commandline conversion. Us court upholds enforceability of gnu gpl as both a. I am struggling to download ghostscript lite for bullzip pdf printer i have switched over to a new computer and uses bullzip pdf printer on a daily basis but seem to struggle to download the ghostscript lite to work in windows 7. May 22, 2017 the gnu gpl is an enforceable contract at last. Loads and loads of freesoftware projects are covered by the gpl, from the linux. Gnu ghostscript gnu project free software foundation. Discussion about gnu ghostscript and ghostview can be found in the usenet gnu. The vast majority of all ghostscript development is done by artifex engineers, and on rare occasions, bug fixes accepted from outside contributors under license by artifex. Its main purposes are the rasterization or rendering of such page description language files, for the display or printing of document pages, and the conversion between postscript and pdf files. On dos and ms windows systems, output normally goes directly to the printer prn. Ghost trap is used to securely convert postscript and pdf files from untrusted sources into images. Agpl ghostscript is the canonical variant available, since february 20, under the gnu affero general public license which is a free software license.
It is used to discuss all aspects of gnu ghostscript, including development and porting. Means that all of your code is publicly available and you use nothing with incompatible licenses e. I am using ghostscript on a desktop application that i intend to sell online. Lets print pdf is a companion app for lets print droid. If you got ghostscript under the aladdin free public license, the person or place from which you got it is also required to make the source code available. This fee can increase depending your business usage. We keep online documentation for the development tree and many previous releases in the documentation archive. A little more information about devices appears near the beginning of the files devs. At the same time, in and by themselves, licenses cant protect you from certain abuses. Please contact us to inquire about a commercial license. Gpl ghostscript is sometimes referred to as gpl ghostscript eng, gpl ghostscript gnu, gpl ghostscript aldot. The article says gpl, but ghostscript has an agpl license. Mar 19, 2020 on an ending note, gpl ghostscript is a multipurpose software that can be used as an engine for viewing and converting pdf and postscript documents, as well as a steady development platform. The gnu gpl is an enforceable contract at last hackaday.
Can the us government release improvements to a gplcovered program. An interpreter for the postscript tm language and the adobe portable document format pdf sometimes confused with acrobat, adobes pdf browsereditor product a set of c procedures the ghostscript library that implement the graphics and filtering data compression. For now, gnu gpl is an enforceable contract, says us federal. You can sell gpl code, but you must make sure that all of your own code or linked means everything on ios is licensed compatible with gpl. Frequently asked questions about the gnu licenses gnu. But after it began using ghostscript in its software in 20, hancom did. Or, you can uninstall gpl ghostscript from your computer by using the addremove program feature in the windows control panel. Gpl ghostscript by artifex software should i remove it. Agpl is a fairly new license that was meant to go gplovernetworks.
Conditions on distributing ghostscript in a commercial context. In addition, ghostscript can be used to convert from postscript to pdf and vice versa. Conditions to distribute ghostscript in a commercial context. Ghostscript is a package of software that provides. This wrapper does not require exporting to the disk, it can render tiles progressively from the ghostscript interpreter. It is available both under the gnu gpl affero license and for commercial licensing from artifex. Ghostscript is developed by a californiabased outfit called artifex. Us court upholds enforceability of gnu gpl as both a license. Ghostscriptviewer view pdf, eps or multipage postscript files on the screen. Apr 29, 2020 gpl ghostscript is sometimes referred to as gpl ghostscript eng, gpl ghostscript gnu, gpl ghostscript aldot. Gpl ghostscript freeware for free downloads at winsite. Gpl says you can t sell rights to use a gpld piece of software. You can sell the software itself, but anyone can make copies of it and sellgive them away on his own.
If you do not want to use control panel to uninstall gpl ghostscript 9. Does the gpl allow me to sell copies of the program for money. The leading edge of ghostscript development is under the gnu affero gpl license. It can be used for file handling, printing, and file conversion. You may not sell this product without written permission. Can i sell an application under the gnu affero general public. Gpl ghostscript how to uninstall gpl ghostscript, what is. Gpl ghostscript how to uninstall gpl ghostscript, what. Ghostscript is today maintained by artifex software who also sell a commercial version of ghostscript and the user community around ghostscript. I am struggling to download ghostscript lite for bullzip pdf. You can give modified code away for free or sell it under the terms of the imagemagick license or distribute the.
Please remember that development of gnu ghostscript is a volunteer effort, and you can also contribute to its development. Ghostscript is currently owned by artifex software and maintained by artifex software employees and the worldwide user community. This page is maintained by the free software foundations licensing and compliance lab. Please be aware that regular removal step may not be able to remove all the gpl ghostscript programs components, some of the registry entries will still exist inside the computer after the regular removal. But if you have software that is of general interest, then there is a good chance that someone will give it away for free and hurt your business. The ghostscript manual may be freely copied and redistributed in printed or digital form if no payment is involved. Ghostscript is a bundle of software that functions as an interpreter to postscript and pdf files. Reaconverter allows regular pdf and ai conversions to jpg or other raster formats. However, the author agrees to any redistribution along with the ghostscript software, provided the distributor. Agpl ghostscript is provided under the gnu affero general public license agpl, as well as. The ghostscript library has an afero license see here. An interpreter for the postscript tm language, with the ability to convert postscript language files to many raster formats, view them on displays, and print them on printers that dont have postscript language capability built in. Ghost trap ghostscript trapped in a sandbox github.
However, the author agrees to any redistribution along with the ghostscript software, provided the distributor complies with the applicable ghostscript license terms. The installation wrapper sites the affero gnu public license agpl or affero gpl license. The program displays a command line where the users need to type the proper commands in order to view, render, convert, rasterize, resize and perform other tasks related to pdf documents. If ghostscript fails to find an environment variable, it looks for a registry value of the same name under the key. Under the commercial license, you can use the code for your own purposes, and keep all. It has been under active development for over 20 years and has been ported to many different systems during this time.
They couldnt do it, even if those were good things. Ghostscript is an open source interpreter for the postscript language and for pdf. You can run this free pc program on windows xpvista7810 32 and 64bit. So, either install it from there or you can just update your current version to latest one. Also, when sold in binary, the source has to be either part of the package or available for free beer. The gpl wont infect your proprietary software unless you link to it. Installing it allows you to view such files and print them on printers that otherwise can t read postscript files. Go to the desktop and find the icon of gpl ghostscript 9. An open source version is available under the gpl license. Registered users have access to the quickest possible download speeds and can also access additional community features such as our download alert, which automatically notifies you when a new version of this software is available. Therefore, the pdfrenderer binaries are also made available under both the gpl v3 or the agpl v3, as pdfrenderer in its current form. I can just go to artifex and get the latest version under that license. This is not a situation where you can ignore the gpl, but its not going to be a real problem for you. Can i use gpl software binaries in commercial environment.
If you select a printer as the output device, ghostscript also allows you to control where the device sends its output. An interpreter for portable document format pdf files, with the same abilities. Anyone may copy and distribute gpl ghostscript both source and object code, but they must distribute the source code as well as the object code or, if they distribute only the object code, they must include an offer in writing to provide the source code at no more than reproduction cost. The gnu general public license gpl this document sets forth the conditions under which ghostscript may be distributed in a commercial context. But in our world it means, technically im not selling software but a service so i. Thus their use of ghostscript falls under the gpl licencing of its opensource public version, and it was on this basis that artifex, the. Open source licensing basics unlike many open source software projects, ghostscript is owned and fully controlled by artifex. Licensing is handled exclusively by artifex software, inc.
Gpl, also known as copyleft, grants permission to reuse or modify the source code to make derivative works, but if you distribute your program to others, it requires you to license your derivative work under the gpl too. Suit claims diebold voting machines violate gpl slashdot. Or, you can uninstall ghostscript gpl msi setup from your computer by using the addremove program feature in the windows control panel. Where is the regular gpl gnu public license version of ghostscript and why is there a separate repository here on sourceforge that is 5 versions out of date compared with the. Ghostscript can be used by other applications to enable handling of postscript and pdf data. Plaintiff alleges that defendant used ghostscript, did not obtain a commercial license, and represented publicly that its use of ghostscript was licensed under the gnu gpl. Unlike many open source software projects, ghostscript is owned and fully controlled by artifex. As for ghostscript at the moment artifex offers it under. Distributing in this sense means giving or selling to customers.
Aug 22, 2012 i am struggling to download ghostscript lite for bullzip pdf printer i have switched over to a new computer and uses bullzip pdf printer on a daily basis but seem to struggle to download the ghostscript lite to work in windows 7. The use of the publicaccess free version of ghostscript. On an ending note, gpl ghostscript is a multipurpose software that can be used as an engine for viewing and converting pdf and postscript documents, as. The actual developer of the free software is artifex software, inc. Of course if a business paid you for creating the software for them, and that payment pays your work, you are fine. For now, gnu gpl is an enforceable contract, says us. If the improvements are written by us government employees in the course of. Ghostscript for windows free software downloads and. The program displays a command line where the users need to type the proper commands in order to view, render, convert, rasterize, resize and. Desktop central helps you to silently install or uninstall software to servers and desktops from a central place, including commercial software like microsoft office, adobe acrobat etc, without user intervention. Does commercial use of ghostscript as saas needs a licence. Using data from the pool it will check the reg for the exe path, the ghostscript does not contain the value in the primary key, it within the sub key.
On the start menu for windows 8, rightclick the screens bottomleft corner, click control panel, and then, under programs, do one of the following. At the time of writing september 2014 the costs for this are rather prohibitive. An interpreter for the postscript tm language and the adobe portable document format pdf sometimes confused with acrobat, adobes pdf browsereditor product. Lets print pdf for android free download and software. Gpl ghostscript overview ghostscript is the name of a set of software that provides. To send the output to a file, use the soutputfile switch for compatibility with older versions of. You can support our efforts by making a donation to the fsf. Gpl ghostscript is the basis for display ghostscript, which adds display postscript functionality support. Ghostscript is a suite of software based on an interpreter for adobe systems postscript and portable document format pdf page description languages. So you can adapt that software for other customers and sell it to them as well. Ghostscript is a collection of software packages available under gpl that are based on a interpreter for adobe systems famous page descriptive languages pdf and postscript. What is the difference between gpl, agpl and lgpl licenses. Ghostscript is an interpreter for postscript and portable document format pdf files.