Gregory's Server@vathpela @glyph This (conveying code from company A to B to C while claiming it was not "distributed") seems to violate the plain language of "copying" or "distribution" as it would have been understood by people who place their code under GPL2, and I doubt a court would sign on with it if this were tested. In GPL3 "distribution" is replaced with a more fine-grained definition of terms concerning copying, and so if this loophole was ever real, it's probably shut now.
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11 comments
 @mcc @glyph I think that's a fair conclusion. Also worth noting that there are other slightly different ways they could have done it that are even more confusing (and maybe they did, I wasn't ever in that part of the business). Like, what if they only ever gave the customers patches, and then rented them out a consultant who downloaded, patched, and compiled gcc for them? It's exactly the same in the end, but a largely different thing being handed over.   @mcc @glyph Well, I don't think lawyers or the courts see it that way, but again I am not a lawyer so I won't belabor that point any more. Maybe as @luis_in_brief, I hear he is a lawyer, just not your lawyer or my lawyer ;)  @luis_in_brief @vathpela @mcc we'd all better stop posting so we can get back to our respective jobs, which are *checks notes* also posting, mostly about the same topics, just with a slightly different emphasis @vathpela @mcc @luis_in_brief ultimately the nature of the debate here just proves the point I was making :). We are arguing over what precise powers that a particular genie would have if it were ever released, but the reality is that the genie gets its power from the tens of millions of dollars that would need to be spent to release it in the first place, and we will never find out so it doesn't matter in any practical sense @mcc @vathpela @glyph I don't know how to conclude whether this article is correct or biased but it talks about the question of whether GPL triggers between e.g. a company and its independent contractors, or when a company is acquired: https://www.jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/view/66 |
@vathpela @glyph At any rate if the behavior in question has been halted for unrelated reasons it seems hard to come to a firm conclusion about whether it was entirely legal?