On Thursday, Aug 7, 2003, at 06:51 US/Eastern, MJ Ray wrote:
It is expected that GPL-3 will contain something similar to the Affero GPLrequirement for remote services to offer users the code. Do you object to that? If so, why?
Depending on exactly what it is, probably. For example, if I were to use a (hypothetical) GPLv3-covered firewall, would I have to offer my firewall code --- rules and all, gotta have complete source --- for download, just because it routed the packets?
I could maybe be convinced to call it OK for some very limited circumstances involving highly-integrated network applications. I, in general, have a problem with requiring me to distribute source when I've never done any copying, distributing, etc.
The only thing I've done is private modifications, which could very likely not require copyright licenses to do anyway (they could be fair use).