Re: [Arianne-devel] FW: commercial status of arianne

[Hanno B. <h....@gm...>]

Hi Matthias,

Matthias wrote:
> Well, this is a special case which is somewhat unclear, as the text says 
> (he may use it in his (private) LAN w/o problems, but not really in the 
> (not so private) internet). Well, the GPL has some more room here, so 
> imho Aaron can use this part to use his closed scripts in the nearly 
> private internet. Just a question of perspective :)
> Aaron, keep up posted what you think and are going to do.

I don't think the license is unclear in this case. If I read the FAQ
right it is clearly not necessary for him to release the source, even if
he runs the modified version on a public server.

Look at this (from the FAQ):
> The GPL permits anyone to make a modified version and use it without
> ever distributing it to others. What this company is doing is a
> special case of that. Therefore, the company does not have to release
> the modified sources.

According to this, he doesn't have to release anything.

Then, the answer continues:
> It is essential for people to have the freedom to make modifications
> and use them privately, without ever publishing those modifications.
> However, putting the program on a server machine for the public to
> talk to is hardly "private" use, so it would be legitimate to require
> release of the source code in that special case. We are thinking about
> doing something like this in GPL version 3, but we don't have precise
> wording in mind yet.

If I'm not completely mistaken, this part is NOT about the conditions of
the GPL, but about FSF's opinion on that matter. They say it WOULD be
legitimate, not that it is, and finally state that they're thinking
about making it a requirement for GPLv3.


I think paragraph 2b) of the GPL is the key part here:
> b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
> whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
> part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
> parties under the terms of this License.

There are no restrictions imposed if I don't distribute or publish it, and that clearly isn't the case if just run it on my server.

But I'm not a lawyer, and will I'm fairly certain that I'm right here, there is a possibility of a mistake on my part (of course, there always is ;) ).


> Thanks anyway. It's scaring how complicate such a short license can be.

Right, and that's one reason why I prefer BSD-style licenses. But I
don't think we should start that discussion again :)

Regards,
Hanno