[olug] U.K. Urged to hold back on open source

[Christopher Cashell]

At Fri, 20 Jun 03, Unidentified Flying Banana William E. Kempf, said:
> If you derive from GPL source (which is a complex thing to determine in
> some cases), the new work is automatically GPLed, and under the terms of
> the license, the source code must be provided or be available upon
> request, with no charge beyond "your cost of physically performing
> source distribution".

The first part of your statement is correct, however the second part
doesn't necessarily apply.

If you create software based on GPL source code (thus, creating a
derivative work), then it must be covered under the GPL license.
However, that does *NOT* mean that you must immediately give away the
source code you've written.  You only have to do that if you distribute
the program.

For example, say I (and my company) take the foo billing program, which
is GPLed, and use it as a base for our new *internal* billing program.
We greatly enhance it and add a lot to it.  We start calling it the bar
billing program, because it's changed so much from foo, but because foo
was GPLed, bar is GPLed.  Am I required to give away bar to anyone who
asks for it?  No.

I *only* have to give, or offer to give, bar's source code to someone if
I give (or sell) bar to them.  If bar never gets distributed outside of
my company, then no one outside of my company has any right to view,
use, or copy the bar source code.

You can find examples where Mr. Stallman explicitly endorses this
viewpoint[1], as the GPL only comes into play when you try to distribute
software.  Private modifications do not have to be released.

This is one of the reasons that there was some concern about ASPs
(Application Service Providers) and Web Services with regards to Free
Software a while back, and why Affero[2] released their new license, the
Affero General Public License[3].  The Affero GPL's primary difference
from the GNU GPL is the addition of a new clause, 2(d)[4], which closes
the loophole that allows people to take GPLed web applications and sell
the use of them (by using a website that runs them), without releasing
their changes.

> William E. Kempf

  [1] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic
  [2] http://www.affero.org
  [3] http://www.affero.org/oagpl.html
  [4] d) If the Program as you received it is intended to interact with
      users through a computer network and if, in the version you
      received, any user interacting with the Program was given the
      opportunity to request transmission to that user of the Program's
      complete source code, you must not remove that facility from your
      modified version of the Program or work based on the Program, and
      must offer an equivalent opportunity for all users interacting
      with your Program through a computer network to request immediate
      transmission by HTTP of the complete source code of your modified
      version or other derivative work.

-- 
| Christopher
+------------------------------------------------+
| A: No.                                         |
| Q: Should I include quotations after my reply? |
+------------------------------------------------+