On Jun 15, 2008, jeff <moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > To me it appears quite clear that Broadcom is distributing a GPL'd > file, and thus has to turn over the source code. Actually, it doesn't have to do that, because they're (presumably) the copyright holders, rather than licensees that, because of copyright law, need a license to distribute the software, and who are thus subject to the conditions the GPL sets forth for distribution. > Can someone explain to me why they are *not* now required to > distribute the source code to this? When they distribute binaries under the GPL without offering sources, they're telling everyone else that redistribution is not permitted until the copyright expires or is outlawed. One might claim they're inducing copyright infringement of other GPLed packages though. Think of it this way: only the copyright holder has standing to enforce a copyright license. If Broadcom is the only copyright holder, why would they sue themselves and demand themselves to comply or stop distributing the program? Also note that it is extremely unlikely that a copyright infringement trial would ever come out with a ruling of "defendant must distribute complete corresponding source code under the GPL". A more likely ruling would be "defendant must cease infringement, and owes damages to the copyright holder". -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} FSFLA Board Member ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
