licensing issues

[Matthias Lang]

Gaspar Chilingarov writes:

 > I wonder are there any legal issues with selling products build with 
 > erlang? Does it require commertial license or it is only for support, 
 > patches & etc mentioned on erlang.se site?

Here is what the FAQ has to say on the subject:

   | The Open Source Erlang Licence is essentially the Mozilla (Netscape)
   | Public Licence with a few modifications to make it compatible with
   | Swedish law.
   | 
   | As far as I understand, this means you can obtain Erlang for free, use
   | it to build cool systems and sell them without Ericsson coming around
   | to charge you money. For an authoritative statement, you'll need a
   | lawyer.

The actual licence is in the file "EPLICENCE" at the top of the
distribution. It can also be read here:

   http://www.erlang.org/EPLICENSE

Here is what the FAQ doesn't say, but I wish it did:

   | There is a fee for posting questions to the erlang
   | mailing list without first making a reasonable attempt to
   | find the answer yourself, for instance by checking the FAQ. That 
   | fee is one pint of beer for each person in attendance at the 
   | next Erlounge you attend. ;-)
 
Matthias