On May 6, 2:59 am, Patrick Cornelißen <[email protected]> wrote: > > IANAL, but it's plausible that if one were to upload GPL software to a > > service provider, the provider would have a right to the source. Then > > you'd just need to convince the provider to share the source with > > you. Whether the App Engine crew would be willing and able to assist > > in this way is an open question. I wouldn't hold my breath, however. > > I doubt that, because it's your software that is running for you and > not for the service provider. > You have no contract with the service provider that grants him usage > of the software you are running. > It's the opposite in my opinion, which leads to the fact that the > service provider can't be considered > as "user" as the GPL means it. > > But again, IANAL...
That's actually an interesting case, because if you read the App Engine terms, you actually do grant Google a license to your software; they need one to reproduce the software throughout their cloud to run it for you. The GPL explictly allows you to do this however, as long as you have an agreement with them explicitly forbidding them to make copies of the portion of the work that's copyrighted outside of their relationship with you, which is also part of the App Engine terms. You *probably* are required by the GPL to provide to Google, if they request it, a copy of any parts of the source that you didn't modify yourself, although they're very unlikely to request that you do so (and, at least with the Python runtime, you've already provided all of your source anyway.) In any case, the GPL doesn't require that you provide source at all to anyone to whom you're not distributing the software. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.
