Rui Miguel Seabra wrote: 
On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 09:29 +0100, Samuel Liddicott wrote:
  

I would welcome more clarification on what constitutes a distribution. 
If a small company modifies and builds and runs GPL software on a single 
computer they are not required to release the source as the derivative 
work is not being distributed.  Arguably a larger company (having more 
than one PC) may use the modified GPL software across the company 
without releasing source - even if they software is used to provide a 
public or commercial service - because the derivative work is not being 
distributed. 

Certainly if the GPL derivative code were made available to another 
company this would count as a distribution. What about to a different 
department? What about a different group company? What about to club 
members? What if the club is a company? What if the club is a company 
AND a club of companies?
    

It may belong to a group, but they are distinct companies. Other than
that, most of what you said are considered private circles in most about
anything.
What if the employee doing the code was empoyed by the group and not one of the group companies?
Does collaboration (say cvs) between developers at different companies of the same group count as distribution?
This is significant as cvs distributions are based on patches and diff's? If ed diff's are used it may be possible to collaborate without transmitting any of the original code; so this collaboration arbuably would not constitute a distribution; but its just a special form of the question: can I distribute a non-GPL patch script to a GPL product?

If company A buys company B (on paper) and then after merging some computer systems immediatly sells company B would this count as a distribution?
Yeah, I am taking things to desperate limits, but desperate times may call for desperate measures; one day something like this may happen?

I would like to know what "distribution" means.

Sam