open-source-software gpl
Usage of gplv3 software to deliver output
<p>a little confused about something here.</p>

<p>Specifically I want to talk about <a href="http://neo4j.com" rel="nofollow">Neo4j</a> and it's licensing.  </p>

<p>It's a dual license, GPLv3/AGPLv3, and I want to find out exactly what that's supposed to mean to me as a consumer of the software in binary form. </p>

<p>If I wanted to use the free Neo4j Community Edition, which I beleive is the GPLv3 license, for (let's pretend) a blog project, which would access the RESTful API to acquire data from the db. Am I free to keep my source code private? </p>

<p>The way GPL keeps getting trumpeted to me, is that anything to do with the code must be open sourced. As in, if I were to modify Neo itself I would need to display those changes publically. But the wording gets fuzzy to me and begins to make me think that the concept of simply using the binary on my server, anything reaching out to touch it, must become open source. </p>

<p>In extension, with this licensing, is one able to use Community Editon inside of a corperate/business setting for either internal tools or publishing of free content publically, so long as services being provided arent in any way locked behind a payment gate? </p>

<p>Thanks to Zizouz212 who made me aware of opensource.stackexchange.com I was able to find this question</p>

<p><a href="https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/2779/using-neo4j-community-edition-in-commercial-applications">https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/2779/using-neo4j-community-edition-in-commercial-applications</a></p>

<p>Within that answer bu Philipp, found something that spelled it all out for me:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>This is also explained in the article I linked above:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>If you’re building a database application that will run inside your
    organization (or for your personal use), then you are free to use
    Community Edition, whether or not your software is closed source. A
    very close analogy is MySQL®, which is also licensed under the GPL.</p>
  </blockquote>
</blockquote>

<p>So there ya have it</p>
