Re: Is this software really GPL?
On Wed, Oct 20, 2004 at 08:04:31AM +0100, Anthony Youngman wrote:
> Sorry for lookout mangling my cut-n-paste - this isn't quite a proper
> reply ...
And the guy who admins this system claims I should be able to
email you now... so hopefully you won't have to do much more of
that.
> Did you look at the thing about subsidiaries ... if you *choose* to
> distribute *source* to your subsidiaries, you are then *obliged* to
> *publish* your source to the *world*!
The closest I can find to this is a claim that distribution to
subsidiaries requires distribution under the GPL. Which seems reasonable.
The most akward expression of that is:
For instance, if you are a corporate IT department, and your
corporation has franchisees, or locally incorporated subsidiaries,
delivery to any of these would be a de facto breach of the GPL unless
you also publish the full source of the application, including any
changes or local customizations of the source, to an independent
freely available solution.
But even this doesn't say anything about having to distribute to anyone
other than who you distribute to.
Of course, it goes on to say:
Please note that if you publish your work under the terms of the GPL,
your competitors may fully use the knowledge and text you disseminate
so long as they do so as permitted by the GPL.
That doesn't mean you have to distribute the source to your competitors.
Instead, it's pointing out that you can't prohibit employees [for
example, ad subsidiaries] from distributing it to your competitors or
to anyone else. If you did, you'd be violating the terms of the GPL.
--
Raul
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