[LAD] GPL Violation Alert! - Sorry if this is a duplicate

[Chris Cannam]

On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 8:59 PM, Sampo Savolainen<v2 at iki.fi> wrote:
> There's also another aspect. Company A might sell a GPL license for
> their software X to company B. They might want to do this as X uses or
> is based on GPL'd code. This means X needs to be licensed under the GPL.
> A is not obliged to distribute X to anyone but B and B might not want to
> redistribute X. B is naturally entitled to the source code of X as per
> GPL.
>
> I'm expecting this happens all the time.

Uh, that's a lot of A, B and X... you mean a company provides GPL'd
code to another, for money, for use in-house or in a service, on the
tacit understanding that it will go no further?

Reasonable supposition, but I can't help thinking it might not happen
as much as all that just because companies tend to be so GPL-averse.
I bet that what happens more often is that company A sells the
software to company B under standard proprietary terms, and just
happens to erroneously include some GPLd software in it without
mentioning it in the license...


Chris