Re: [tlug] RE: Response to pretty much all the copy right and liscense posts in the last who knows how long.

["Fergal Daly" <fergal@example.com>]

On 09/01/07, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:
> Fergal Daly writes:
>
>  > The ultimate in copyleft would be something that forces you to
>  > distribute all your modified versions, even the ones you only ever
>  > used privately. I doubt there will ever be such a license,
>
> Not to that extreme, but remember that "you" may be a corporate
> person.  There are several extant licenses that require distribution
> if you "deploy" licensed software internally.  Others (which are not
> considered free by the FSF) require a giveback of modifications to the
> licensor.  ISTR that a provision requiring publication of deployed
> derivatives was proposed for GPLv3 and got serious consideration
> (though RMS was against it from the start, he did give it a review) in
> the pre-public review stage.

By "deploy" you mean that the software is on company servers but used
by customers for example. I have some sympathy with making that
"distribution". I wonder what these licenses you refer to say about
internal deployment. The GPL FAQ says internal distribution within a
company is not distribution for license purposes - the employees are
not entitled to source code if the company gives them the binary. The
same would presumably be true for deployment - there would have to be
some external person using the deployed software before modification
had to made available,

F