OpenDesk.com License Proposal

[Andrew J Bromage]

G'day all.

On Sun, Nov 07, 1999 at 02:17:47AM +0100, Philipp Gühring wrote:

> 2) Commercial Use for Private Installations (e.g. installing OpenDesk on an
> Intranet)
>   a) Modifications to Covered Code must be released under this license.
> 
> The GPL does that.

No it doesn't.

If you install a modified version of a GPL'd product as a server
product on an intranet, you are not obliged to release modifications,
since you are not actually distributing anything, neither binaries
nor source.

The situation with OpenDesk (or, indeed, any server app system) is
different, since you don't have to distribute anything in order to let
people use it.  The GPL doesn't help, since it only covers distribution
of source, object code and binaries.

ObGPLbait: The GPL is a great licence, but it does read like it comes
from a former era, when you could really only run a program by
executing its binary on your own machine, and everyone understood what
you meant when you used words like "compiling" and "linking".  Modern
techniques of application serving and programming language
implementation mean that it doesn't really help preserve either the
openness or freedom (take your pick) of many modern applications.

Cheers,
Andrew Bromage