Must publish vs. must supply

[Abe Kornelis]

Bennett,

thanks for your reply. Please find my comments inserted
in between your tecxt.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Bennett Todd <bet at rahul.net>

2003-03-05T14:34:23 John Cowan:
> The GPL and the OSL take what I consider to be a reasonable attitude:
> you must supply changes in source form to people who have received
> the changed version.   If the changed version is published to all, the
> changes must also be; if the changed version is distributed to a few,
> ditto the changes; if the changed version is never distributed, the
> changed version need not be either.

NB that there are some interesting points in this neighborhood.

At least one software provider explicitly defines "distribute"
to include distributing to different offices within a company;
they then feel privileged to demand that a company that uses
their Open Source product for an in-house project pay them for a
commercial-redistribution license, rather than using the open source
version, unless they're willing to completely open-source their
in-house app.

I raised the topic on this list, and got wide-spread agreement from
people here that this is compliant with the Open Source Definition,
which I must confess disappointed me.
--> Understanably so. To me too, this would seem unreasonable.
      In the current draft for the BXAPL license
      see http://www.bixoft.nl/english/license.htm
      a company is viewed as a single entity - therefore internal
      re-distributions would qualify as 'keeping the code private' 
      not requiring distribution to the public.

-Bennett



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