Todd -- It seems to me that the writer has two issues confused:
1. A possible loophole in the GPL. 2. Investigation and correction of a license violation. My understanding of the GPL is that selling an appliance containing GPL'd code would constitute distribution, and the GPL does require the source code to be made available if the binaries are distributed. So, it would seem that the author of a GPL'd product is seeing GPL violations of his software, and is choosing to withdraw the source code from future releases of his software, rather than go after the violators. This would be a legitimate business decision for him, and one that I can understand, although it does sadden me. To me, the possible loophole has to do with whether renting an appliance constitutes distribution. I believe it would (and I certainly hope that it would), but I'm no leagle begal. it didn't sound from the article that rentals were what caused the author of Nessus to make his decision. -- Bhaskar On Fri, 2005-10-07 at 04:03 -0500, Todd Berman wrote: > Hey, > > Just ran across an interesting link from slashdot that I found > germane > to a previous discussion on this list relating to the GPL and > loopholes > in it. http://news.com.com/Nessus+security+tool+closes+its > +source/2100-7344_3-5890093.html?tag=nefd.hed > > (beware of line wrapping) > > --Todd ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: Power Architecture Resource Center: Free content, downloads, discussions, and more. http://solutions.newsforge.com/ibmarch.tmpl _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
