selling GPL sources

[Mahesh T. Pai]

Rick Moen said on Mon, Sep 19, 2005 at 04:57:17PM -0700,:

 > So, he'll have to sue himself for copyright infringement?

No,  the  user  can sue  the  copyright  holder  for violation  of  an
undertaking!!!

The undertaking here being the unilateral undertaking by the copyright
holder to provide source code at no more than cost of distributing the
_source_.

A copyright  holder who is not  providing source code  but claims that
the binaries  are under  the GPL is,  IMHO, violating his  own promise
made in the GPL.

 > I personally cannot see the  legal theory under which the copyright
 > owner has  a legal duty to  produce his own source  code, _if_ it's
 > not a derivative  work of someone else's creation,  a copy of which
 > he accepted and used under GPL terms.

(snip)
 
 > In  like fashion,  some  people have  been  known to  claim that  a
 > codebase  of their  creation  is BSD-licensed,  but never  released
 > anything but binaries: That is then _ostensibly_ BSD-licensed code,
 > but not in substance -- and  yet that, too, is not any obvious sort
 > of tort against anyone, just a bit comical.

The  BSD licence, unlike  the GPL,  does not  impose an  obligation to
provide the source code.

-- 
Mahesh T. Pai

Slander      -     False
 Confuse      -     Unclear
  Obfuscate    -     Dubious