[OT] some weird GPL licensing questions

[Andreas Pour]

Thiago Macieira wrote:

[ ... ]

> > And does this also
> > mean that I don't have to give the sources to somebody who doesn't
> > have the binary and who I don't like (for whatever reason) ?
> 
> Right. If someone doesn't have anything, he's not entitled to ask you
> for anything. (Which is why some of GPL's old fears isn't true:
> in-house built software that doesn't get deployed doesn't require
> source code being made available. So companies CAN develop using GPLed
> Qt and not release the source to anyone, as long as the software is
> used only inside said company.)

While this is apparently the FSF's position, it is IMO unequivocally wrong. 
Intra-company distribution is still a distribution (ask e.g. MS if it is OK to
buy one copy of software for all employees of a company)[1], and if the company
tries to prevent employees from re-distributing further, it is imposing
additional obligations and hence loses its right under the GPL to distribute at
all.
 
[ ... ]

Ciao,

Dre

[1] The GPL by its terms applies to 
"copying and distributing" and in copyright the meaning of these terms is
clear.  For example, if your company buys one copy of a magazine, it cannot make
an individual copy for each employee (maybe 100,000) and say this is not
violating the copyright of the magazine - the idea is totally absurd.