[olug] U.K. Urged to hold back on open source

[William E. Kempf]

Christopher Cashell said:
> At Fri, 20 Jun 03, Unidentified Flying Banana William E. Kempf, said:
>> If you derive from GPL source (which is a complex thing to determine
>> in some cases), the new work is automatically GPLed, and under the
>> terms of the license, the source code must be provided or be available
>> upon request, with no charge beyond "your cost of physically
>> performing source distribution".
>
> The first part of your statement is correct, however the second part
> doesn't necessarily apply.
>
> If you create software based on GPL source code (thus, creating a
> derivative work), then it must be covered under the GPL license.
> However, that does *NOT* mean that you must immediately give away the
> source code you've written.  You only have to do that if you distribute
> the program.

Which is precisely what I said in the e-mail prior to the one I'm
correcting here.

> For example, say I (and my company) take the foo billing program, which
> is GPLed, and use it as a base for our new *internal* billing program.
> We greatly enhance it and add a lot to it.  We start calling it the bar
> billing program, because it's changed so much from foo, but because foo
> was GPLed, bar is GPLed.  Am I required to give away bar to anyone who
> asks for it?  No.

Absolutely correct, but this is part of what makes the corporate lawyers
wary of the GPL.  Imagine that some library component was created, based
off of the GPL work, for this billing application.  Since the billing
application is not distributed, the lawyers need not be concerned about
the use of GPLed code here.  Unfortunately, later on we create some
financial calculator which uses this derivative work and distribute it to
others.  It's too easy to miss the fact that this causes the calculator to
be GPLed and thus we have to distribute the source for it.

> I *only* have to give, or offer to give, bar's source code to someone if
> I give (or sell) bar to them.  If bar never gets distributed outside of
> my company, then no one outside of my company has any right to view,
> use, or copy the bar source code.
>
> You can find examples where Mr. Stallman explicitly endorses this
> viewpoint[1], as the GPL only comes into play when you try to distribute
> software.  Private modifications do not have to be released.

Again, I very explicitly never said anything to contradict this.

> This is one of the reasons that there was some concern about ASPs
> (Application Service Providers) and Web Services with regards to Free
> Software a while back, and why Affero[2] released their new license, the
> Affero General Public License[3].  The Affero GPL's primary difference
> from the GNU GPL is the addition of a new clause, 2(d)[4], which closes
> the loophole that allows people to take GPLed web applications and sell
> the use of them (by using a website that runs them), without releasing
> their changes.

Uhmm... that sounds like one of those cases in which it's difficult to
determine if something is a "derivative work".  This is why you should
never touch GPLed code unless you explicit want your own code to be GPLed
or have a slew of lawyers to dissect the nuances in the license and how
they *think* it applies to your situation.  With most other licenses you
don't have this fear.

Again, before this thread spins too far out of control you should keep in
mind that I'm not against open source or free software.  I just dislike
the GPL, and understand that corporations are so wary of it that many
won't let you touch it, even when there should be no risk.

-- 
William E. Kempf