Re: license question?

From: Malcolm Dew-Jones (yf110_at_vtn1.victoria.tc.ca)
Date: 10/15/04 

Date: 15 Oct 2004 10:57:05 -0800

Floyd L. Davidson (floyd@barrow.com) wrote:
: "xarax" <xarax@email.com> wrote:
: >"P.T. Breuer" <ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote:
: >> xarax <xarax@email.com> wrote:
: >
: >Again, you are a moron. I've spent years
: >negotiating license agreements with attorneys,
: >CEOs, and CFOs.
: >
: >> What the
: >> LGPL does is allow you to distribute such a derived work (and I quote)
: >> "under terms of your choice" [provided only that you allow reverse
: >> engineering and debugging and relinking and access to the source code
: >> of the Library, to summarize your obligations].
: >
: >Nope. Derivative work imposes restrictions and
: >demands on *your* code. Read the fucking agreement
: >again from end to end.

: While you were emptying the trash cans and ashtrays in these
: negotiating sessions, did anyone ever explain to you that if it
: is *not* a derivative work then *no* license is required at all?

: Clearly Peter is correct.

: >And never ever use any GNU-type license for
: >code that you want retain as your own.

: Unless of course you want to retain it, *and* be guaranteed free
: access to all derivative works.

The GPL does not guarantee free access to all derivative works.

The guarantees are only for the rights of the recipients to whom someone
distributes the software. If the original author is not a recipient of a
later modification then they cannot necessarily get the derivativations of
their code.

        quote from preamble, emphasis mine

        For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
        gratis or for a fee, you must give the __recipients__ all the
        rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive
        or can get the source code.

In the version of COPYING that I am looking at the specific details are in
section 3. Clause a) allows you include the source code with the
distribution and in that case you explicitly do not have to make the
source code available in any other form to any other person, which means
that the only person guaranteed to get the source is the person to whom
the modified code is distributed.

I would suggest that other sections also imply this. In addition to the
preamble I already quoted, for example, section 6 quite explicitly
discusses the "recipient" receiving certain rights (i.e. the person to
whom the code is distributed), not simply any old person who might _like_
to be a recipient (but isn't for any reason).

The license does not say, as far as I can see, that distributing the code
to one person obligates you to distribute it to other people, except
potentially in section 3, part b, and c, but as I said, if you comply with
part a of section 3 (providing the recipient with the source as part of
the distribution) then you explicitly do not have to comply with part b or
c.

So in conclusion, if someone modifies your gpl'd code and sells it _with_
the source, then you cannot force them to give or sell the modified code
back to you. The sellers only obligation is to the purchaser to whom they
sold the software. (And that purchaser has no obligations to give
anything to anybody unless they choose to start distributing the code
themselves.)