Dear WinSCP team,
Glad to find you!
Please allow me to congratulate your for this outstanding product, for the hard work and for making it available for free!
Also, I will kindly ask you to bare with me, I do not even come from an English language speaking country so I can't address this question to an (accessible to me) law*yer (this word was not accepted to be posted without the "*"...).
Secondly, I found no contact email on the site, no "General discussion" thread in the forum so please excuse me if I post in a wrong place.
So, why would I need clarification? I just found WinSCP by searching on Big G so it is too early to say if I will be able to build a plugin that may be successfully loaded from within the compiled executable – or – if I will need to slightly modify its' source code.
In both cases, my intention is to add a certain level of automation in regards to a value added service which I intend to launch. While it is too early to say if I will be getting money WITH THE SERVICE or not, my intended service will be based on PAID subcriptions.
Going forward, the intended plugin will be LOCKED to a certain installation, not because I will ask more money for additional installations, but due to end user security concerns.
Now, from my own service's security concerns, I intend that the code of the plugin NOT to be disclosed, but if this would be a must, I'll have to work harder, build just a wrapper and control everything from the my server's side…
While I am totally confused about the GPL license (Wordpress and Elgg are just two examples of GPL licensed products for which COMMERCIAL plugins – addons are sold regularily), please let me know:
a. If the code of the intended plugin MAY be kept confidential or not.
b. If I will end up by MODIFYING the source code to accomodate a new menu item for my plugin and possible delete the "Check for updates" from the actual "help" menu (otherwise all my work will be removed at the next available update), would this be acceptable from your side? Do I have to send / upload somewhere the slightly accomodated source code?
Please keep in mind that the software package itself will NEVER be sold and it may be installed on any number of computers, the plugin can be ACTIVATED as per the end user's needs and will, but in the absence of a paid subscription NO integration + automation with the intended value added service will take place.
Thank you very much for taking your time to read this and obviously, for enlightning me!