Hi Gabriel,
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Most EPICS software is distributed as source code, rarely as binaries (there are binary packages available for Debian Linux but they should have source packages available too, and I’m not really talking about them here). The EPICS Open License (EOL) does permit binary distribution with certain conditions though, so some companies sell products including binary versions of the EPICS core code and this is legally fine as long as they follow those conditions.
The question of compatibility between the EOL and the GPL isn’t something we have asked for legal advice over, but I don’t personally have any objections to projects using the GPL, and I think that would be true for all of the current core developers. If there is a legal incompatibility the act of distributing as source code instead of binaries would also prevent problems, because the end-user is the one combining the code and the GPL conditions are only triggered by the act of distribution.
I hope this helps, but I don’t think anyone could give you a definitive answer.
- Andrew
