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What is your interpretation of the following text from GPLv2 (I added link to the official text above): "2 b) You must cause any work that you distribute or pu

What is your interpretation of the following text from GPLv2 (I added link to the official text above): "2 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."

r9550684 3y ago
it's the recursive clause, that applies gplv2 to derivative works. the prescriptive part is "must cause … to be licensed", and nothing else. what is says is that paraphrasing "the work based on program must be licensed at no additional fee under similar terms as the original program". this part is self-contained and doesn't say anything about e.g. copy and distribution. the copy and distribution clause is only part 3, where you "may" copy and distribute the program (or its derivative work, as per part 2) provided that you either "accompany it with complete … source code" or some means to get the source code from you on demand. I can't claim this just from reading the license, because I'm not a lawyer, but in rms's reading and in Lessing's reading, the combination of part 1 and part 2 mean, paraphrasing, "if you make derivative work, compile it, and distributed it, you must also provide source code".
schoen 3y ago
That language is referring to copyright permissions (i.e. promising not to sue people for copyright infringement for using or distributing the software in accordance with the GPL). It doesn't refer to providing access. A trickier thing for Red Hat might be > You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. One may argue about how to interpret that with regard to, for example, terminating a business relationship as a result. (I could see arguments on both sides.) Also, Red Hat's method for complying with section 3 could be a subtle issue, because one of the options for compliance requires promising to provide "any third party" with the source code upon request. I don't know whether Red Hat is using that option or a different option.
- dogmatism 3y ago
  >One may argue about how to interpret that with regard to, for example, terminating a business relationship as a result I think there's been far too little focus on this, which is the crux of it. IMO (an IANAL) it seems pretty clear that even though this is not an explicit new license condition, it de facto does prevent redistribution: i.e. "you can do business with us, but only if you do not exercise one of your rights" in de facto limiting that right I would love to see this adjudicated. Is there a company that builds statically against RHEL and resells, or modifies RHEL as a paying customer and resells that could show material injury by this move?
- bonzini 3y ago
  Red Hat is not using that option. In fact GPLv3 restricts that option to physical products, which RHEL is not. By distributing the packages via SRPMs, Red Hat has a single method that complies with GPLv2, GPLv3 and also with the attribution requirements of permissive licenses.
  - wang_li 3y ago
    I suspect that RH is not complying with the GPLv2. I can use yum to install a package from RH’s repo and it does not result in me having the source, so 3a is out. They don’t offer to distribute source code at cost to any third party, so no 3b. And 3c is non commercial distribution, so that’s out. There is no 3d.
    - schoen 3y ago
      Maybe that's covered as a 3a distribution by this additional language? > If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
    - oso2k 3y ago
      You only need to enable the companion source repo(s) to get access to the source. To be able to access the binary & source repos via our CDN, you need to be a registered “customer” of Red Hat (which includes no-cost developer account agreements) which then gives credentials to access our CDN. If you have a valid credential to pull binary RPMs, you also have access to pull source RPMs.

r9550684 3y ago

it's the recursive clause, that applies gplv2 to derivative works. the prescriptive part is "must cause … to be licensed", and nothing else. what is says is that paraphrasing "the work based on program must be licensed at no additional fee under similar terms as the original program". this part is self-contained and doesn't say anything about e.g. copy and distribution. the copy and distribution clause is only part 3, where you "may" copy and distribute the program (or its derivative work, as per part 2) provided that you either "accompany it with complete … source code" or some means to get the source code from you on demand. I can't claim this just from reading the license, because I'm not a lawyer, but in rms's reading and in Lessing's reading, the combination of part 1 and part 2 mean, paraphrasing, "if you make derivative work, compile it, and distributed it, you must also provide source code".

schoen 3y ago

That language is referring to copyright permissions (i.e. promising not to sue people for copyright infringement for using or distributing the software in accordance with the GPL). It doesn't refer to providing access. A trickier thing for Red Hat might be > You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. One may argue about how to interpret that with regard to, for example, terminating a business relationship as a result. (I could see arguments on both sides.) Also, Red Hat's method for complying with section 3 could be a subtle issue, because one of the options for compliance requires promising to provide "any third party" with the source code upon request. I don't know whether Red Hat is using that option or a different option.

dogmatism 3y ago
>One may argue about how to interpret that with regard to, for example, terminating a business relationship as a result I think there's been far too little focus on this, which is the crux of it. IMO (an IANAL) it seems pretty clear that even though this is not an explicit new license condition, it de facto does prevent redistribution: i.e. "you can do business with us, but only if you do not exercise one of your rights" in de facto limiting that right I would love to see this adjudicated. Is there a company that builds statically against RHEL and resells, or modifies RHEL as a paying customer and resells that could show material injury by this move?
bonzini 3y ago
Red Hat is not using that option. In fact GPLv3 restricts that option to physical products, which RHEL is not. By distributing the packages via SRPMs, Red Hat has a single method that complies with GPLv2, GPLv3 and also with the attribution requirements of permissive licenses.
- wang_li 3y ago
  I suspect that RH is not complying with the GPLv2. I can use yum to install a package from RH’s repo and it does not result in me having the source, so 3a is out. They don’t offer to distribute source code at cost to any third party, so no 3b. And 3c is non commercial distribution, so that’s out. There is no 3d.
  - schoen 3y ago
    Maybe that's covered as a 3a distribution by this additional language? > If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
  - oso2k 3y ago
    You only need to enable the companion source repo(s) to get access to the source. To be able to access the binary & source repos via our CDN, you need to be a registered “customer” of Red Hat (which includes no-cost developer account agreements) which then gives credentials to access our CDN. If you have a valid credential to pull binary RPMs, you also have access to pull source RPMs.