> >>> The GPL also uses the term ,any third party'. > >And the FAQ clarifies exactly what is meant by "third party": Under some >circumstances (ie GPL section 3c) Distributees may pass along your written >offer of source code when they pass along your binary. Your offer must >extend to these third parties (they are "parties" to the licence agreement, >btw) as well as to your original distributees.
i believe this is correct. marek is reading the GPL as a regular english text, when in fact it is legalese. in normal english, "a third party" is just "another person". in a license agreement, it has a much more specific connotation. a "party" here is not a person, its someone who is in some way involved in the license agreement being discussed. a "third party" is thus a person involved in the license agreement, but they are not either the licensee nor the licensor. none of this would be notable to a lawyer - its only an item for disagreement/confusion because its interpreted by non-lawyers way too often :) >But if (and only if) you distribute an executeable, then you are obligated >to make source available to those who you distribute it to, and to "third >parties" as described above. and this is precisely why the 3 options for distribution (in the non-commercial distributon case only) include an "upstream feed" (i.e. you can get it where i got it). if i license my program to you, and you (non-commercially) distribute it to someone else, you can point them to me. --p