What does open source license (like GNU-GPL) mean?

Posted by Hemant on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Hemant
Published on 2010-06-18T11:37:46Z Indexed on 2010/06/18 11:43 UTC
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licensing

I am looking forward to use an open source product which has GNU-GPL like license and it says that if I use that product, I must share the source code of my application.

I am slightly confused about it. I understand that Linux is available under GNU-GPL license as well. Does it mean ALL linux application are and has to be open source? Does it mean I can ask for the source code of complete Oracle DB from Oracle Corp (at least the part that runs on Linux)?

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