GNU Cash as accounting engine

[John Ralls]

On Jun 12, 2010, at 8:21 AM, Amiruddin Nagri wrote:

> I do understand Gnucash is under GPL, and I don't have any problems with making the module that is interacting with the engine opensource. I am planning to make my Gnucash interacting module such that external programs can subscribe to post transactions to it, and get updated information about accounts etc. 
> 
> So does that mean my application which will be using this GPL interaction layer also have to be GPLed ?

I'm not a lawyer, and you should probably find one with expertise in intellectual property and experience with open source software.

That said, my understanding is that it depends on how you design the interaction. If you create a client-server interaction where clients communicate their transactions over a published protocol so that anyone can write a client, then only the server which uses GPL would  have to be released under a GPL-compliant license. Any closer coupling would require the client to be GPL as well.

Regards,
John Ralls