[svlug] Yopy and the GPL

[J C Lawrence]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2001 20:16:07 -0500 
Justin F Knotzke <shampoo at cam.org> wrote:

> I am fully aware of this. My point is two fold.

> I. Are they changing GPL'd code and not supplying the code
> changes?  2. If they did not make any code changes to GPL'd code
> then the tools they are selling are freely available
> everywhere. How do they expect to make any money?

If they never distribute the toolchain that produced those binaries
(they did the GCC etc port in-house), then they are under no license
obligation to release the source changes to the toolchain.  This is
a fairly simple route to making disclosed source applications on a
platform while keeping the development environment for that platform
closed (until someone else does the port, which could be made very
difficult due to IP constraints).

Now note, this is not to say that this is what they _DID_, just that
they could have.

-- 
J C Lawrence                                       claw at kanga.nu
---------(*)                          http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--