From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1efdd369be089610 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1025b4,1d8ab55e71d08f3d X-Google-Attributes: gid1025b4,public From: kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) Subject: Re: what DOES the GPL really say? Date: 1997/07/01 Message-ID: <5pbd6q$8si$1@news.nyu.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 253904008 References: <5pb8gf$j4m@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> Organization: New York University Ultracomputer Research Lab Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,gnu.misc.discuss Date: 1997-07-01T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <5pb8gf$j4m@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> rrw1000@cus.cam.ac.uk (Richard Watts) writes: > Hmmm.. interesting. How would you cope with a customer who distributes >interim or wavefront releases to the world, possibly for a fee approaching > your own ? As I see it, if you tried to restrict service to customers >who didn't redistribute the code you shipped them, you might be open >to a suit for constructive licensing ? How does the FSF feel about >this ? This hasn't happened with GNAT and, for a number of reasons, isn't very likely to. It *has* happened with GCC snapshots distributed by the FSF and in those cases the person was no longer on the list to obtain the snapshots. There is no obligation to distribute to anybody. You are perhaps correct that a formal policy of not giving future releases to people who've redistributed in the past might violate at least the spirit of the GPL, but nobody has proposed doing that. The point is that FSF chooses to give GCC snapshots to the people whom it believes will best help the GCC project and ACT has customers who they believe have needs consistent with the support services offered. ACT has no obligation to accept as a customer somebody who has a different model of what support is than ACT and the FSF has no obligation to distribute GCC snapshots to somebody who isn't helping the GCC project.