The licensing issues on Linux can be easily overcome -- and it should be pointed out that not all software on Linux is GPL or LGPL (Apache and Perl come to mind). FWIW, I develop commercial software on the Linux and Solaris platforms, and we use a combination of proprietary Java and C++ code plus open source tools and libraries. ffmpeg is kind of a weird case since if you include certain modules the entire thing is GPL but you can ship just the LGPL components as binaries and get around the restrictions associated with GPL.Fabrice wrote: Today, Linux is a very mature OS, has a big support, and is easy to develop.
The problem comes from the license type : the GPL license, in opposite of BSD, does not allow a commercial use of the product, and force the result to be GPL too.
GPL does not only mean open source, but also free for all. It's "contagious".
All the utilities and libraries used on Linux can not be used inside a commercial product, or in a very complicated and limited way (if we don't want to change our economical model, of course)
The ffmpeg library is a good example : we can use two licenses type : GPL and L-GPL which are limiting the functionalities.
Commercial development on Linux requires a lot of care in order not to break the GPL (or L-GPL) licenses. The development, easy at the beginning, may become a nightmare quickly.
In our opinion, that's the reason why there no more big commercial products on Linux.
I can understand the apprehension -- TVPaint doesn't need anymore legal problems!
