I work for a company that includes the perl interpreter with our product, written entirely in perl. The people in charge want to follow the "gated community" model of software development. That is, you have access to the source code only if you buy the product. The logic is that they like the collaborative model of Free software, but they refuse to put their valuable IP out there for the world, because as a software development company, the code is their major asset. We frequently use and distribute some CPAN modules, and inherit and subclass those that are practical. Are we violating the GPL or Artistic with these practices? More importantly, if I inherit from a GPL'd class, am I ethically bound to contribute my derived class, even if I don't change any of the original code?

This may seem obvious to many of you, so I appreciate any wisdom you see fit to bestow...

In reply to ethical software development by dshahin

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