It occurs to me that in the U.S. there is a relatively easy way to circumvent the requirement of giving away source code for GPLed software.
Company A prepares a work derived from GPL-licensed code. Company B purchases copies of this work from Company A. For each copy purchased, Company A sends Company B two disks, one with the binaries and one with the sources. Company A has thus completely discharged its duties under the GPL. Then Company B turns around resells only the binary disks to its customers, but not the source. Company B is allowed to do this under the First Sale Doctrine, and therefore does not need a license to resell the software. The customers of Company B have no one from whom they can demand source code, and thus the GPL is circumvented. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
