GPL and server appliances

[Stefano Maffulli]

On Mon, 2004-07-26 at 22:22, Jerome Alet wrote:
> say some company (A) enhances your software, install the new 
> combined product on a server appliance, and put the server appliance 
> at a third party company (B, its client), but DOESN'T SELL the 
> server appliance to B. Instead of selling it, A is still the full 
> owner of server appliance, which is installed at B's location only 
> as part of a support contract. 

This counts as distribution, in both copyright and droit d'auteur
regimes.

> Question : does company A violate the GPL or not by not distributing 
> full source code under the terms of the GPL to B ?

Yes, A violates the GNU GPL.  If you believe that a company is violating
the GNU licenses please follow instructions reported at 
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html

regards
stef
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