Plan 9 license

[kmself at ix.netcom.com]

On Wed, Aug 30, 2000 at 04:29:18PM -0700, Chris Sloan wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 27, 2000 at 11:45:02AM -0700, David Johnson wrote:
> [...]
> > First, there is no requirement to give changes back to the orginal
> > authors. If I modify gcc, for example, and give a copy to my friend, I
> > am not required to submit my modifications to anyone else. Second,
> > despite any legal shieldings a corporation may have, they still cannot
> > change the software's license. It doesn't matter if the corporation
> > tells me as an employee not to redistribute their modifications, since
> > it is not their copyright to change. As long as I personally possess a
> > copy, I can redistribute it. 
> 
> Is this really true?
> 
> My understanding was that a legal entity can make private
> modifications to GPL software and is allowed to keep those
> modifications private, but if they choose to distribute the modified
> version, they are required to distribute the source to the
> modifications under the GPL.

...to those parties the modified versions are distributed to. 

More precisely, under section 3 of the GNU GPL, source, or a promise
good for three years to provide source at no more than a nominal (cost
of media) charge.  Noncommercial distribution has the option of referral
to sources for unmodified software (3(c)).

> So, since a corporation is allowed to make private changes, I don't
> see why they could not instruct their employees to keep those changes
> private to the company.
> 
> Have I misunderstood something here?

The last time I saw this addressed by RMS and/or Eben Moglen, the
undertanding was that copies for employees to use at work and for work
purposes were not considered external distributions, but copies taken
home and used outside of work hours were.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>     http://www.netcom.com/~kmself
 Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.                    http://www.opensales.org
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