What exactly is "redistribution?"

Matthew Flaschen matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu
Fri Apr 13 22:03:35 UTC 2007


Zach Leatherman wrote:
> My question is, what is the difference between distribution and use in
> a web environment?

IANAL, but if you provide the code for someone else's computer to
run/parse (e.g. Javascript, CSS, Java applets, whatever), I think that's
clearly distribution.

> Because the files are hosted in their application,
> they are not really redistributing the code as a whole, just 4 or 5
> lines of it.

If that's the only client-side code they're using, they probably have
nothing to worry about.  It's likely to be fair use, though certainly
distasteful and a violation of the license.

Matthew Flaschen



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