French GPL-compatible License

Samuel Liddicott sam at liddicott.com
Tue Jul 13 08:32:49 UTC 2004



Reinhard Mueller wrote:

>Am Die, den 13.07.2004 schrieb Niall Douglas um 1:46:
>  
>
>>I'll just short circuit the answer to this because I thought the same 
>>as you until quite recently. The GPL's wording only mandates that 
>>derived code must supply its source, not that the derived code must 
>>also be GPLed.
>>    
>>
>
>GPL, 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.
>
>The derived code *must* be GPL.
>  
>

To be clear: ONLY if you distribute or publish the derivative work.
AFAIK you can still provide public and commercial services using the 
derivative without distributing the derivative.

What does "to all 3rd parties" mean? It doesn't sound like it means 
"people you distributed the derivative work to" which is what I 
previously understood.
This ressurects cases of embedded linux routers without source; who must 
supply the source to the end customer?
The re-saler? The importer? The manufacturer? Or the developer of the 
embedded code who supplied it ONLY to the manufacturer?

Sam

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