🚀 go-pugleaf

Scott E. Johnston:
   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.

It is certainly in the spirit of the GPL to charge one customer for a
port and make it available for distribution charge only.  And it is
definitely the case that if you do a binary-only distribution that you
are required to make the source generally available.

However, enforced distribution is a bit sticky legally, and a person
could probably get away with doing a port, distributing it to one
person then not distributing it further.  However, neither party can
force the other party to hold to non-distribution (that would violate
the GPL), so a continuing arrangement of non-distribution might be
grounds for a "restraint of trade" lawsuit.

I'm sure the lawyers can come up with something to keep themselves
employed ;-)

And there are a couple good reasons for public distribution of a port:
cash flow, and standardization.  So a company which tries to pull
stunts like non-distribution is also going to face an economic
handicap.

Raul Rockwell