[License-discuss] Open source license and non disclosure agreement

[David Woolley]

On 03/10/13 09:54, Quentin Lefebvre wrote:

This is the important part:

>     must do so exclusively on your behalf, under your direction and
> control

It means that they cannot use it for their own purposes.

The GPL doesn't restrict internal use within an organisation, or the 
keeping secret of development versions that have not been provided to 
someone outside the organisation.  This clause extends this to people 
acting as agents of the organisation, but only to the extent they are 
agents.  If they have access to the software in any other role, they 
have the right to redistribute.

There are situations where is unlikely that re-distribution will occur, 
but not illegal for it to happen.  One would be a gentleman's agreement. 
  Another is where the product is sold to a company which would have no 
incentive to redistribute (often true of specialist, but horizontal, 
market products sold to utilities, etc.).