While I was at university I developed some PHP libraries which I intended for personal use. I used them in a few personal projects.
When I joined my current job we created a commercial product which required the same functionality. I proposed using my libraries as they were familiar to me. We did.
Since then I have modified and improved the libraries in the last couple of years (all in my own time) and want to release them as open source under the GPL licence.
Now under the GPL licence you cannot use the libraries as part of commercial software, so does me doing this now in any way affect the commercial software or their protection? Am I free to release these libraries in this way?
Thanks in advance!
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The license is intended to protect your copyright and interests, not to take them away.
As the only author of the library, you are free to relicense it under whichever scheme you wish, including for usage in commercial products. Indeed, it’s not that uncommon. For instance, PolarSSL is released under GPLv2, but a license can be bought for usage in closed source code.
If the library is used internally (e.g. server-side) and never distributed, the relicensing thing is not even necessary, for GPLv3 at least.
The only issue would be if you used external code. In that case, you must take the necessary steps to comply with the respective license.
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