Re: Market pressures for more reliable software

[Charles Hixson <charleshixsn@earthlink.net>]

Al Christians wrote:

 >> Al Christians wrote:
 >>
 >> only those who are have a legitimate binary copy  have the right
 >> to require source code
 >>
 >
 > My understanding is that once a work has been released under GPL,  all
 >  copies are legitimate, source and/or binary.    You must allow it
 > to be licensed to any and all third parties without any conditions beyond
 >  those in the GPL. There's a new  FAQ a few weeks ago from FSF on  GPL
 >  that explains some of these issues.
 >
 >
 > Al
 >
Umn... not precisely.  Anyone you give or sell a copy to has the right 
to further release it, but that doesn't make all copies legitimate.  You 
could give it to a business associate for use in some project, and 
someone could steal it from him, or someone could break into your 
computer and steal a copy.  These would not be legitimate copies.  If 
they were to be distributed further, the holder could be required to 
provide source, but would not necessarily have any access to the 
appropriate source.

OTOH, practically speaking, anything which is widely distributed under 
the GPL has legitimate copies available to anyone.

P.S.:  Steal in this case simply means acquiring a copy illegally. 
E.g., a piece of software could be licensed GPL, but only be used 
internally in an organization (i.e., no public release).  And an 
employee who did not have the right to do so could e-mail it to an 
external associate.  No malice need be involved.  For that matter, I 
don't even assume any damages beyond the assumption of the requirement 
to make source available.  My statement is that there is no such 
requirement.  The employee didn't have the right to distribute it, so 
the copy is illegitimate.  And the firm doesn't have to keep the 
unchanged source on file for three years (presuming the source wasn't 
distributed with or instead of the binary).

Now IANAL, so there are lots of special cases in here that depend on 
points of law that I have no knowledge of.  But that's the broad outline.
-- 
Charles Hixson

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