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Article #23088Re: GPL and NDAs
From: Jeffrey B. Siegal
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 00:00
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 00:00
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Isaac wrote: > The question is whether or not placing binaries on company > computers and allowing the employee to then run does or does not > have consequences under the GPL. Actually, I think that is a poor (and loaded) phrasing of the question. Are employees allowed to copy the binaries? (In many cases, they are.) If so, then this is treated completely differently from running them by GPL, so the focus on running is a distraction. Also, allowing an employee to run binaries on a single computer does not look particularly like distribution; installing those binaries on a large number of computers throughout an organization looks a lot more like distribution. In reality this is simply one of many cases where the GPL is vague and ambiguous. There is no and will never be any clear answer until either someone litigates or GPL is rewritten. > Have you expressed an opinion one way or another on this question? I have expressed doubts about the validity of NDA's as applied to GPLed softawre and have argued the point, but I really don't have a solid opinion on this. > Ownership may not be essential, but certainly when ownership changes > there can be no question that distribution has taken place. Hmm. I'm not sure that's true but I haven't thought about it much. Since I doubt that the whole "transfer of ownership" concept is particularly useful, it probably isn't worth the effort.
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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 102b75,6e7c0786c7ba904e X-Google-Attributes: gid102b75,public X-Google-Thread: 1025b4,92d97b78a13510de X-Google-Attributes: gid1025b4,public From: "Jeffrey B. Siegal" <jbs@quiotix.com> Subject: Re: GPL and NDAs Date: 2000/01/31 Message-ID: <389618B0.38CB3061@quiotix.com> X-Deja-AN: 580099772 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <y4902dyklq.fsf@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> <84ga7c$mih$1@nntp3.atl.mindspring.net> <1999Dec30.151712.1@eisner> <386BD144.22362F3A@gmx.de> <o5wvpubn8g.fsf@tofu.to.cygnus.com> <386E890B.1B191CB@gmx.de> <o5iu1bnlr9.fsf@toenail.to.cygnus.com> <3871419C.7D23AE72@gmx.de> <38805954.BC45E825@quiotix.com> <qhu2kefjv0.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <38819C4C.BD383DFD@quiotix.com> <qh7lha9fms.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <38839E3D.22DE182E@gmx.de> <qhwvp8paaw.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <388F8A3B.19C57187@home.com> <86pjhm$crf$1@justus.ecc.lu> <m2k8kryeac.fsf@barnowl.demon.co.uk> <871va3$dm3$1@pyrite.mv.net> <3894AE0F.7DD7547C@quiotix.com> <3894EB2B.EC6F5A45@home.com> <389540A7.6012E51F@quiotix.com> <slrn89b8nb.4u.isaac@latveria.castledoom.org> <3895A4CD.F8E08937@quiotix.com> <slrn89c420.62.isaac@latveria.castledoom.org> X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: abuse@pacbell.net X-Trace: nnrp3-w.snfc21.pbi.net 949360816 63.198.99.82 (Mon, 31 Jan 2000 15:20:16 PST) Organization: SBC Internet Services MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 15:20:16 PST Newsgroups: comp.arch,gnu.misc.discuss