What is a Commercial Use License?

Can I use the GPLv3 license for my commercial application?

• I am creating an commercial application in java with hyper-table database .The Hypertable has an GPL version 3 license. What i understand in GPL version 3 is if i need to redistribute the application as commercial i need to release the source as open source is that true?Or can any one give some better explanation for me to understand.

• Answer:

  You can license your commercial application under the GPLv3 license as long as you comply with the terms of the GPLv3 license. You may discover, however that these terms do not work so well in your favor, since one of the terms prevents you from adding restrictions to the license. Another requires you to make your code available to the licencor. Let's play this out.  You create an application and license it under GPLv3. You assemble a list of thousands of prospective customers who would love to use your code -- so you are excited about getting rich. You start with me, since I'm a sucker for good code, and you sell me your app for $10,000. I give you the money and you are on your way to making it big. However, you have to give me your source code too. I then decide that I'll post your source code on my website and let everyone else take your code and use it for free.  Suddenly your plans to make a lot of money don't pan out, since I just gave away your code. And you can't stop me. You then discover that I had some greater financial incentive to starve you which is why I spend some money to take advantage of your innocence. Your alternative strategy is to offer two licenses -- a GPLv3 and a commercial license. You put on your site that you are all about being Open Source and love software freedom -- but you are selling to a market where you know that none of your customers would be willing to use your code under GPLv3, since they need to use it for their commercial apps. So all your customers really pay for the commercial license, but you get to make it appear that you believed in open source.  This is sometimes called "open-washing" but it's a pretty common way for open source vendors to operate. You can also sell services, configuration, certification, and education to people who use your GPLv3 code. And then you are competing on execution, knowledge, and scale of services. not code secrecy. This is what most so-called open source vendors do. So here's the question -- are you selling code?  If so sell code.  Are you publishing code? if so publish code with an open source license (one that has terms that will work for your target audience).  Although legally you can put a GPLv3 as the exclusive license on commercial code, you'd are not going to be able to monetize the code, since you have commoditized it.  Your best bet is to seek guidance from an expert if you are planning to go into business.