If the legal department has not already sanctioned the source code
release, you should certainly not even think of distributing a binary.
All of the mechanism to provide source must be in place before the
binary goes out.
Under the terms of the GPL, the acceptable delay is zero.
There are many ways to make money involving the GPL. This just isn't one
of them.
Thanks
Bruce
On 03/09/2014 12:06 PM, Olliver Schinagl wrote:
Hey list,
I was talking to a friend the other day and it was discussed what the
legal ramifications where on delayed release.
Ignoring the use case specifically, if I would write a program, based
on a GPLed program, I have to release source or accompany it with an
offer to do so. Before releasing this code however, it will have to
pass through the legal department for example where they sanction it
all. So that introduces a delay. It could also be very much that a
company would use that as an excuse, to delay the release of the code.
How long of a delay would be acceptable? This is not a case where one
would try to circumvent the release or anything. The intention is to
release everything as expected, it is not used as some con to not
release things as needed. It may merely be used as a way to maximize
profits (its hard enough to earn money on OSS and OSHW, but lets not
get into that argument).
Thanks for your thoughts,
Olliver
