Re: generic query regarding GPL and licensing terms associated with gdb

["Steffen DETTMER" <Steffen.DETTMER@ingenico.com>]

* Robert Dewar wrote on Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 17:33 -0400:
> Steffen Dettmer wrote:
> 
> >As I understood, one of the most essential key points of GPL is
> >exactly that it is not possible to licence code under terms of
> >GPL and redistribute any derived work without offering this
> >derived work also under the terms of the GPL.
> >So I think "take GPL code, modify it [...] and then distribute it
> >without giving a GPL license" simply is not allowed at all.
> 
> But my point was that if you do this (and are thus in a
> position of potential copyright infringement), this act
> does not cause you to lose rights to your trade secrets
> or copyrighted code that may have been distributed at the
> same time.

Thank you for explaining. I think now I see the point.

I assumed that in such a case the source code /must/ be made
available, if the owner rejects that, court would enforce it, as
for example happend with LinkSys WRT.

But of course this was though to short. For example it could not
be that someone includes third-party code which ends up as GPL'd
sources because someone else put it into work derived from GPL'd
product. Also, the violator could buy a different licence from
the copyright holder (which might be given
alternatively/additionally to the GPL).

> If you are judged to have infringed, then you must cure
> the copyright infringement in the future. In the case of
> the GPL, one way you could do this *at your option* is
> to release all your code under the GPL, but you are never
> forced to do this.

Yes, thank you for the explanation.
(so in the example of LinkSys they released the code because the
alternative - not using a firmware on the routers - was no option).

oki,

Steffen

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