Re: [OT] some weird GPL licensing questions

On Monday 09 February 2004 21:43, Alexander Neundorf wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I know this it OT here but here are competent people around :-)
> The last time I tried kde-licensing it seemed to be dead.
>
> Let's say I (in the case I would be an until now proprietary-only
> developing software company) would decide to make a library dual-licensed
> GPL and commercial, I wouldn't *have* to put the GPL sources on a
> website, right ? I would only have to ensure that everybody who buys the
> binary version from me is able to get the sources for the binary, maybe
> he has to send me a mail and then I send him the sources. Right ?
> Would I actually be allowed to sell this software ? I.e. would it be ok
> to say "give me 500 euro and you get the GPL binary library, and if you
> ask for it, I'll send you also the sources". Of course as soon as he
> would have received the sources he would be allowed to make them
> available for free on his webpage. Right ?
>

The Kompany is doing exactly that for aethera and probably other open source 
projects. They had  a GPL program that they don't want to give away in the 
traditional open source way, so you have to buy and they ship you the 
program along with the source (as far as I know). Nothing (in the GPL) 
precludes such a buyer to publish the the whole program on the web for free 
and for anybody. However, they can probably manage to put additional 
restrictions for example by licensing their artwork differentely.

	Philippe


-- 
Philippe Fremy 
Directeur Technique - InSeal CTO
email: [email protected]
tel: +33 6 07 98 76 44