| |||||||||||||
QuestionQuestionPosted Feb 17, 2004 18:56 UTC (Tue) by ccyoung (guest, #16340)Parent article: Allnet GmbH resolves iptables GPL violation If the equipment were leased, not sold, would the source code need to be reavealed?
(Log in to post comments)
Question Posted Feb 17, 2004 19:27 UTC (Tue) by Zelatrix (guest, #5163) [Link] Yes.The GPL is a licence to reproduce a copyrighted work. Without accepting the GPL, Allnet didn't have the right to make multiple copies of the iptables code. You can't run off a few hundred copies of a copyrighted work and distribute them, whether you're selling or leasing. ObIANAL
Question Posted Feb 17, 2004 20:33 UTC (Tue) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] [loose quoting.]>> If the equipment were leased, not sold, would it violate the GPL? > Yes.. You can't run off copies and distribute them. OTOH, the GPL DOES allow for internal distribution within a company, without publishing source or any mods used in the internal build. Leased equipment still belongs to the company and may be held to be internal distribution and thus exempt. IANAL, but that's getting close enough to borderline that I'd be a bit doubtful. It'd be interesting to see Professor M's (sorry, won't attempt to spell it from memory, but the FSF's lawyer dude..) take on that specific question, and he might have addressed it somewhere, but I haven't seen it. Even then, I believe it'd take a series of court verdicts to establish and confirm precedent and know for sure. Duncan
Question Posted Feb 17, 2004 23:56 UTC (Tue) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link] You cannot lease or rent a piece of code without permision from thecopyright holder. The GPL does not allow leasing or renting code. The only authorisation is about distributing it. So they have no other options than _giving_ the software as part of the leasing, and then they are bound by the source code obligation toward the recipient.
Question Posted Feb 18, 2004 20:44 UTC (Wed) by remijnj (subscriber, #5838) [Link] It'd be interesting to see Professor M's (sorry, won't attempt to spell it from memory, but the FSF's lawyer dude..)That would be Eben Moglen.
Question Posted Feb 17, 2004 22:10 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] They must accept the GPL in order to duplicate it beyond fair use of a copy provided by a distributor, regardless of what they do with it. They therefore would have to reveal the source. On the other hand, it is not entirely obvious to whom they have to reveal the code. The GPL says (3, 3b): You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: It therefore comes down to a question of to whom you are distributing the object code when you lease a piece of equipment to someone. If you are not distributing it to the user, then you only have to offer yourself the source (although if Allnet sells devices to ISPs to rent to ISP customers, they have to give the code to the ISPs). However, I think you are, in fact, considered to be distributing something if you rent it to someone. The thing about internal use of modified GPL software is that you have to distribute the source, but you don't have to distribute it to anyone but yourself, so it doesn't matter much. (You never have to distribute source to the general public, but people generally find it easier than distributing it only to the necessary people, who can then distribute it more widely anyway).
Question Posted Feb 18, 2004 1:10 UTC (Wed) by laf0rge (subscriber, #6469) [Link] If you go for solution 3a) of the GPL (shipping source together with binaries), then you don't have to ship it to anybody else.However, if you go for 3b) (the written offer approach), then you have to ship the sources to any 3rd party.
|
|||||||||||||