On 03/10/14 22:09, Neil Brown wrote:
On 9 Mar 2014, at 19:06, Olliver Schinagl <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
How long of a delay would be acceptable?
As others have said, there is no position within GNU GPL 2.0 or 3.0
which permits a delay in the provision of the source code. However,
perhaps, if your question were phrased slightly differently, it might
elucidate some further interesting and useful comments? Perhaps:
A company develops, manufacturers and retails a product containing GNU
GPL 2.0 covered code, and distribution of the binary is to be
accompanied by a written offer conforming to section 3(b).
Someone chooses to take up the written offer, and asks the company for a
copy of the source code.
How long need the delay be between someone asking for the code, and the
company providing it, for that company to be considered non-compliant?
(Hopefully formulating the question in this way does not make me one of
the horrible lawyers intent on circumventing the GPL but, if it does, at
least take comfort from the fact that I am not *your* horrible lawyer :))
That also is an interesting question, to which I hope some will offer a
sensible answer.
Another way of rephrasing it would be.
What if I am the sole copyright holder and I understand and feel the
importance of the GPL (I stress this as I said before, there is no
intention whatsoever to circumvent the GPL) and release a product (hard
+ software) of which I'm the sole copyright holder with a promise of
releasing the code after 6 months. Technically I haven't released any
code yet, so there's no license to adhere to yet, but that's less
important I guess.
Maybe that makes it a little bit different. Now if I where taking a
existing GNU/Linux system, had modifications done to it, kept those
patches back for 6 months, I do think that is far 'worse', but going
with Neil's rephrasing above makes it an interesting point.
Neil
__________
Neil Brown
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> | http://neilzone.co.uk
