Hi Tim,
|| On Tue, 1 Apr 2003 22:54:01 +0200 || "Tim Kosse" tim.kosse@gmx.de wrote:
tk> Please help me with this issue, does this company violate the GPL tk> or is this allowed? Is it valid to sell trialware GPL software?
This is a tricky situation that would need to be investigated more deeply to come up with a qualified final ruling.
From reading your mail I got the impression that it is likely they are violating the GPL. Not because they are selling GPL software -- that is perfectly legal -- but because they deliberately seem to hide information about the freedoms associated with the application.
So it seems likely they are violating the clauses of paragraphs 1 and 3 of the GPL; do they distribute it with source code? If not, where is their written offer to do so? Is a copy of the GPL in the distribution in a reasonably visible location?
Also it might be possible to argue in terms of customer protection, because what they are doing is suggesting to customers that they have relicensed this program in a proprietary way.
Although it seems they avoided that technically, sometimes courts will base their decisions upon appearance to the customers.
As for general treatment of such matters, experience shows that making such cases public decreases the chances of finding a solution because it makes the other party much less willing to listen/compromise for feeling accused publicly.
So posting this on discussion, a public mailing list, might not have been the best idea for your specific case, although the discussion might certainly be generally useful to others.
On http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html you'll find some good information about how to deal with GPL license violations.
Likewise, the GPL FAQ http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html can never be recommended enough.
For general license questions, you can always mail licensing@gnu.org.
If you seek assistance by the FSF to deal with potential license violations, you can always contact us directly.
As you seem to live in Germany, germany@fsfeurope.org might be the best choice for you.
Regards, Georg