Free Software and Public Performance

[Mark Koek]

David Johnson wrote:
[...]
> One of the comments struck me as significant. The author asked what was
> actually being sold when a application was served from a publicly
> accessible server. He asserted that it was the CPU time that was being
> sold, and not the software, a software license, etc. Basically, a
> company installs a web-based application then sells the *use* of their
> server running the application.
[...]
> And thoughts on this?

My feeling is that if you run a GPL'd program off a server you should
have the same rights as if you'd downloaded it and run it locally.

That is, if you provide GPL'd software on a server you should make the
source available. This way, you can still ask money for using the CPU
time but the users' freedoms are intact.

Just my humble € 0,021


Mark