Free Software and Public Performance

[David Johnson]

On Wed, 19 Apr 2000, Mark Koek wrote:

> 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.

To play devil's advocate here, consider the following real life
situation. Someone installs GIMP on a server, writes an HTML front end.
Users can log on and for $1 create a personalized web banner. Should
the server operator have a legal obligation to provide the sources for
GIMP? For his own CGI scripts?

Another: Should a university that allows remote login to its network be
legally required to make available all the sources for the GNU tools
provided?

 -- 
David Johnson...
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