[svlug] Re: Business GPL concerns

[Erik Steffl]

On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 11:44:44AM -0400, Bill Jonas wrote:
...
> I'll throw my hat into the ring for this debate.  I think that the
> possibilities that are being considered are a bad idea (mostly for reasons
> which others have already stated, so I won't go into that here).  Your
> proposal is interesting, but there's a practical problem with it, one that
> RMS has already spoken out against.
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html
> 
>      In January 2001, Apple released another version, ASPL
>      1.2. This version fixes two of the fatal flaws, but one
>      still remains: any modified version "deployed" in an
>      organization must be published.

  IMO: as was already hinted in some other posts the whole issue is
that the line between deploying and distributing is blurred by the
"net everywhere".

  it is obvious that in some extreme (today, it might not seem extreme
tomorrow) cases companies would take a GPL'd application, say office suite
(or OS, see workspot.com), enhance it, keep the changes and instead of
'distributing' that software to customers (i.e. the customers would
'have' software ) it just 'deploys' the software, i.e. running the
software themselves and letting customers use the software. virtually
all software can be deployed (in this sense) instead of 'distributed' (as
meant in current GPL). if enough companies do this, the GPL is basically
irrelevant... useless. I think that's what they are trying to address.

  in other words, with today's (and even more so with tomorrow's)
technology (high speed networking available) the company can achieve
the same functionality as if it were distributing software without
distributing it (as current GPL defines distributing).

  I don't like the idea of having to distribute ALL changes but the
above threat is real. Not sure what the solution is.

  IMO it should not be mandatory to distribute local changes to
apache, but it should be mandatory to distribute local changes to
on-line office suite (that would go with current spirit of GPL). there
is virtually no technical difference between the two though... I mean
I can recognize apache from office suite :-) but how do you define the
difference so that it is applicable to ALL cases like these?

	erik