Question [LWN.net]

Question

Posted Feb 17, 2004 20:33 UTC (Tue) by Duncan (guest, #6647)
In reply to: Question by Zelatrix
Parent article: Allnet GmbH resolves iptables GPL violation

[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

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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 the
copyright 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 20, 2004 9:55 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Good explanation. Thanks!

Duncan

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.