[OT] some weird GPL licensing questions

[Thiago Macieira]

Andreas Pour wrote:
>Read the GPL to see the terms for a distribution.  One of them is,
> that you cannot restrict who receives a copy of the program from
> further redistribution..

And herein lies the issue: "who receives a copy". I am not considering 
that deploying a program within a company, on the company's own 
computers, is considered distribution. (deploy != distribute)

The GPL expressly allows any licensee to make as many copies as he wants 
and the GPL does not impose any restriction on what you do with it (= 
you can make copies *and* install them).

Imagine the following situation: a company's tech department goes 
overnight to every workstation and install a copy of the program. The 
next morning, the employees arrive and use the program. At no moment 
did they receive a copy of the software.

If we extend this to absurdity, imagine you come to my house and sit at 
my computer. Does this grant you automatically license to every program 
I have installed, GPL or no? If you telnet/ssh into a server, does this 
grant you a license to the software installed there? (If so, I think I 
may have a few Solaris licenses to collect...)

With traditional EULAs, you may not copy the software without 
transferring all your rights to the recipient (thus leaving you with 
none, but that's beside the point). If installing a software on a 
company's own computer were considered distributing, then each employee 
using the software would need to have a license of said software -- 
which would in turn let him simply take his copy home.
-- 
  Thiago Macieira  -  Registered Linux user #65028
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