Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 05:25:11PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
> >Matthew Garrett said on Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 11:02:34AM +0100,:
> > > Nathaneal Nerode wrote:
> > > >If the user is really doing stuff privately -- just for himself! -- and
> > > >happens to talk about it, he certainly shouldn't be forced to distribute it
> > > >before he's ready! This is no issue at all.
> > > Am I reading a different license here? The copy of the QPL at
> > > http://www.trolltech.com/licenses/qpl.html says:
>
> <snip>
>
> >Something can be distributed without making the whole thing available
> >to the public.
>
> Yes. I know. But read the context - Nathaneal said "If the user is
> really doing stuff privately -- just for himself! -- and happens to talk
> about it, he certainly shouldn't be forced to distribute it before he's
> ready! This is no issue at all.". The QPL does not oblige you to do
> anything if "the user is really doing stuff privately". It *only* comes
> into play when the user wants to distribute.
But what is distribution? I would contend that it is any time a copy is
made which would (by default) be disallowed by straight copyright law[1].
Hence, distributing my modified version of QFoo to the machines in my server
farm would result in my being required to send a copy to the original author
if I happened to blog about it and he read it.
Worse still is the case where I lose the source to the modifications at some
later stage. I cannot comply with the original author's request; am I then
to be sued for copyright infringement because of that? I pulled my modified
QFoo off my servers ages ago; nevertheless, distribution occured, and the
original author is within his rights under the licence to require me to
provide my modifications.
Another issue that just popped into my head -- can *every* "original author"
request a copy of my changes? If the Linux kernel was QPL, could I be
required to send thousands of copies of my software to every person who had
a copyright interest in the Linux kernel? Starts to sound like a *very*
onerous restriction to me.
- Matt
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