[nycbug-talk] Re: wasabi

[Marc Spitzer]

On 1/23/06, Johnny Lam <jlam at pkgsrc.org> wrote:
> Marco Scoffier wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 23, 2006 at 02:06:28PM -0500, Marc Spitzer wrote:
> > <snip>
> >
> >>But once you have shipped one copy your customer can demand a copy of
> >>the source, which you must provide, and put it up on source forge for
> >>all the world to download.
> >>
> >
> > Is this one of the loopholes which is being fixed ?  Sounds like FUD,
> > but I don't know for sure.
>
> I don't know what you mean by "loophole".  The basic principles behind
> the GPL is that anyone who gets the binary distribution of a piece of
> software must be able to get the sources, and that anyone can
> redistribute that software.  The GPL takes a while to explain precisely
> this, but that's the general aim.
>
> This applies to your example in that your customer, to whom you've sold
> your GPLed software (binary + sources), can now freely distribute the
> exact same binary and sources according to the GPL.  Which means, as
> Marc pointed out, they can upload it to SourceForge and let anyone
> download it.

One small point, they can not redistribute *your* binaries, unless
your licence with them says its ok.  But they can roll there own
binaries from source and distribute them.

marc
>
>         Cheers,
>
>         -- Johnny Lam <jlam at pkgsrc.org>
> _______________________________________________
> % NYC*BUG talk mailing list
> http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
> %Be sure to check out our Jobs and NYCBUG-announce lists
> %We meet the first Wednesday of the month
>


--
"We trained very hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to
form into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that
we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it
can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion,
inefficiency and demoralization."
-Gaius Petronius, 1st Century AD