🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ueu4gxeaka@ads.com> johnston@ADS.COM (Scott E. Johnston) writes:
>I think the general wisdom on the net is wrong.  

No, the general wisdom on the net is correct.

>According to the
>license, once you distribute or publish a work to one party, you have
>to make it available to all third parties at no charge, with the
>exception of being able to charge a distribution fee for the physical
>act of transferring a copy.  

No.  Go reread it.  It says that, if you distribute binaries to someone, you
must provide sources, if so desired.  *To the person (or persons) you gave 
binaries to*.  If you give the sources to the second party, then you are
under no obligation.  See below.

There is *nothing* in the GPL that requires that someone distribute
anything, if they choose not to.  More, there is nothing that requires
someone to give binaries to someone they don't want to.  (If you give
someone binaries, you must give sources as well, if so desired.  If all you
do is distribute sources, you don't have to give *them* to anyone you don't
wish to.)

>I think I agree that it is desirable for organizations like Cygnus to
>be able to charge for more than distribution costs for ports of GNU
>software, and it is unreasonable to expect someone would port GNU
>software for no charge, but that is not how the license reads.  

"You may copy and distribute [...] in object or executable form under the
terms of Paragraphs 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the
following:

	a) accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
	source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Paragraphs
	1 and 2 above"

If you do that, you are under no obligation *whatsoever* to give sources to
anyone.  (Section b, which I didn't include, did say that if you only give a
written offer, you must provide sources to third parties upon request; I
wonder about that, though.)

Also, if you choose not to distribute a GPL'd program, you are not under any
obligation to distribute anything else.  (I think this can get a bit hairy.
Say that you work for a corporation, and someone in said corporation writes
a program using some GPL'd library, and distributes it around the company in
binary form.  What if (s)he refuses to distribute sources?  If it was done
as offical act of the corporation, I think the lawyers could make a pretty
good case that it is not required to distribute sources internally.)

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it;
sef@kithrup.COM  |  I had a bellyache at the time."
-----------------+           -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_)
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.