4 ms·

Not a contract lawyer, but close enough friends with people who are attorneys at the EFF. Once it enters the public domain under the GPL terms, even if you dual

Not a contract lawyer, but close enough friends with people who are attorneys at the EFF. Once it enters the public domain under the GPL terms, even if you dual license it with a caveat for commercial use, if a binary is released either licensed as, or containing elements of code licensed as, the GPL, it remains under the GPL. Hence why the GPL has a reputation of being "infectious". Ultimately, you'll have attorneys arguing over the semantics of the wording such as: >> "For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code... plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable." e.g., does this include any binaries produced using the GCC toolset? Commonly agreed as no. What if you bundle a Linux distribution - in a binary fashion - that contains the Linux kernel (Oracle Linux, which is indisputably GPL[1], containing the Oracle Unbreakable Kernel (including components of dtrace (indisputably BSD) + ksplice (definitively GPL, and GPLv2 for that matter) which are tightly coupled into the kernel?). People have been court ordered to release their source-code for distributing proprietary software released to the public for using BusyBee as their hardware's base. Oracle has a bigger bankroll than the average corporation. It could be argued either way until the cows come home but until a court decision is made setting precedent, it remains fairly undetermined. I'd feel more than comfortable using a revision of something that was released, accidentally or not, under the GPL for my product in a commercial setting. But I'd certainly have to comply with any requests for access to the source-code if they come about. (A common misconception is that you have to make the source readily available, e.g. on Github, but you only have to make it available upon request to the requestee.) [1] http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/027617.pdf http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/027617.pdf for a very carefully worded read if you want to see lawyers and PR people unify in a beautiful exhibit of linguistic acrobatics

brazzledazzle 11y ago
>(A common misconception is that you have to make the source readily available, e.g. on Github, but you only have to make it available upon request to the requestee.) Correct me if I'm wrong–but to be more specific, my recollection is that the only requester that you are obligated to provide source to is whoever you've distributed binaries to. Of course, they're permitted to distribute it as they please so the distinction may be largely irrelevant.

brazzledazzle 11y ago

>(A common misconception is that you have to make the source readily available, e.g. on Github, but you only have to make it available upon request to the requestee.) Correct me if I'm wrong–but to be more specific, my recollection is that the only requester that you are obligated to provide source to is whoever you've distributed binaries to. Of course, they're permitted to distribute it as they please so the distinction may be largely irrelevant.