[ale] Time to stir the pot

[Jim Kinney]

Yes but internal use is parallel to personal use which is paramount to gnu
gpl philosophy.  V3 closes the hole that google exploits along with other
service providors. It's a Good Thing.
On Jan 5, 2012 7:10 AM, "Michael Trausch" <mike at trausch.us> wrote:

> On 01/05/2012 06:58 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> > He harps on gnu because some other floss licenses allow a coporate
> > takeover with no give back. Thus the gpl v3.
>
> Well, the GPL allows it, too (even v3), just not in all the cases that
> other licenses do.  As an example, if a corporation uses a GPL licensed
> product internally, they do not have to provide source code to the
> employees (because internal usage doesn't count as "distribution", at
> least here, because "distribution" requires that something be conveyed
> between organizations as opposed to internally).
>
> So, while it can happen that a company improves or modifies a GPL
> program without making its changes available, the only reason that it
> doesn't have to is that it isn't distributing the binaries to third
> parties, but retaining it for internal use only.  This makes the scope
> very limited, but that works out alright for a company that wants to
> keep their modificiations private.
>
> In practice, I'm not sure that it's terribly wise to do so.  An employee
> could very easily make the mistake that it's GPL licensed software and
> that means that they could distribute it to a third party without worry.
>  But they could find themselves fired if they force the corporation to
> publish it's modified version without someone approving distribution.
>
> The fact that the GPL only comes into play at "distribution" time makes
> that all possible.
>
>        --- Mike
>
> --
> A man who reasons deliberately, manages it better after studying Logic
> than he could before, if he is sincere about it and has common sense.
>                                   --- Carveth Read, “Logic”
>
>
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