Does Commercial use of GhostScript as Saas needs a licence ? [closed]

Question

I was working on a project. In which a user can upload PDF and convert it into images and So that i have used GhostScript dll (gsdll32.dll). Now in my application i want to charge from users as monthly subscription so that i can provide them more features.

But i neither have any knowledge about the licencing terms nor about ghostscript tearms & conditions. So do i need to purchase any licence regarding Or is there any other free C# library, that can be used for pdf processing, which i can use in a commercial applicatoni without acquiring any licence ?

Well i am preferring any free c# library for regarding (Premium Saas or direct application selling).

Thank you If anyone having real time experience regarding above, Please help me out.

Answer 1

_{I am not a lawyer. You should get one, if you are concerned about possible legal issues.}

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Does Commercial use of GhostScript as Saas needs a licence?

Well, first of all, you need a license to use any software (except one, which is public domain) in any way.

As for Ghostscript at the moment Artifex offers it under: a) GNU Affero GPL, which is license for free/libre software; b) non-free/proprietary license, which Artifex calls a ‘commercial license’. But it’s called ‘commercial’ because, I guess, Atrifex makes money on it, definitely not because that is only way for you to use Ghostscript for profit.

Any free software license, including GNU AGPL, by definition gives you, once you obtain a copy of software, right to use it for commercial purposes, including selling it; but you, of course, have to strictly follow the terms of that license. The key point of GNU AGPL is that it is a strong copyleft license. That means, that you have to make your entire software product, which is based on Ghostscript, subject of GNU AGPL, which in turn put you under obligation to provide to your customers (including customers of SaaS) correspondent sources for your product and to grant them permissions to (0) use it in any purpose, (1) redistribute it, (2) modify it and (3) distribute modifications; all of that in accordance with GNU AGPL.

So no, you have not obtain ‘commercial license’ from Artifex to use Ghostscript in your app. But if are not going to provide these four freedoms to your users, then yes, you’d better contact Artifex and ask them a price.

By the way, Artifex is not pioneer of that practice of copyleft/proprietary bi-licensing, it is well-known for years.

As for why I said ‘at the moment’. Not so long ago, prior to version 9.06 (inclusive), free/libre license of Ghostscript was not GNU Affero GPL, but ordinary GNU GPL (see license files doc/COPYING in source archives as a proof), which is a bit more permissive – it does not oblige you to grant any permissions to users that interact with your software via client-server protocol over a network but does not possess a copy (that’s what you mean by ’SaaS’, I guess). Users who bought a copy still have to obtain it under GNU GPL.

Version 9.06 is definitely not too old – is supplied now in testing version of Debian. You might consider using it.