Hyman Rosen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > John Hasler wrote: >> Sure, you could buy Debian CD sets from CheapBytes, throw away the >> source CDs, and sell the binary ones. So what? Are suggesting that >> company B contract with company A to do this? If so company A is >> company B's agent and the GPL is violated, not circumvented. > > I don't see anything in the GPL that would imply that when > one company hires another to create GPLed software, the two > companies become united into a single entity. The GPL does > not talk about agents.
You mean if I pay somebody to drop a brick from a window when I signal him, I am not accountable for murder? > It's also perfectly legal for one company to pay another to > develop modified works derived from GPLed code, and to pay > that company more money in exchange for not distributing the > software to anyone else. The software developer delivers the > multiple copies of sources and binaries to the hiring company, > gets money to not deliver it to anyone else, and is done. The > hiring company uses the first sale doctrine to resell only the > binaries. You'll have a hard time explaining to the judge that this first company was not acting on your behalf and is an independent seller of prepackaged software. A really hard time. The difference between computers and judges are that neither considers it funny if you try meeting the letter of the law while violating its intent. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
