From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Justin Guyett To: Michael Eager Cc: Subject: Re: Compiler for Red Hat Linux 8 Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 19:26:00 -0000 Message-id: References: <3B563EED.D55AB932@mvista.com> X-SW-Source: 2001-07/msg01325.html On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Michael Eager wrote: > Unless I'm reading the GPL incorrectly, this does not violate the GPL. > > GPL does not require that code which depends on NDA info to be made public. > It says that if you produce a product using GPL code, that the source must be > made available to the recipient of the product and that the derived product > must be licensed under the GPL. It does not mandate that you publicly > distribute the product nor does it prohibit your distribution of the product > selectively. That's not my impression... Yes, you can close the source and keep it in-house, and you can distribute it to only 1 other person if that's what you want to do. However, the GPL _forces_ you to give GPL rights to anyone you distribute software to, which conflicts with every NDA I've ever seen. That one person you give it to then must be allowed to distribute it, modified or not, to anyone [s]he wants. Otherwise it's not GPL'd, and thus you cannot give it to them. The GPL doesn't only protect the right of people to get source code to modified versions they received, but also protects the right of those people to distribute their copies, modified or not. Otherwise anyone can tack on a "you must get permission from us before you redistribute" which is obviously not allowed. If redhat is allowed to do this to gcc, microsoft can do the same thing, wrap it in an "NDA" license, and even if you get the program and request source (which they then must provide), you can't make changes or distribute it to others. Seems like a NDA is clearly incompatible with the GPL. justin