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Comment by zokier | Hacker News Reader

I think the "internal use" argument is interesting because of its bearing to question what rights do employees have to internal software that is based on copyleft software?

Like for example should Google employees have right to redistribute their internal patched Linux (that I'm certain they have) code without repercussions (ie getting fired)? How would one even enforce such thing?

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Employees have no rights to internally modified GPL software. The software has not been 'distributed' to the employee.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#InternalDistrib...

As I understand it, Linux is GPLv2 and you're allowed to make private modifications without publishing the source code, just as long as you don't release your modified version anywhere public. Once you do that, you have to share the source code modifications.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePos...

The "internal use" argument for not needing to license the video is more like "I don't need to buy a license of Windows as long as I only use this computer in the office and nobody tells Microsoft about it."

To clarify this, there is nothing in the GPL that forces you to distribute to anyone. E.g. you can make a highly modified GIMP for internal use in your company and keep it closed source and internal.

The only condition is that IF you distribute your program, you must also distribute the source code.

Or you must make the source code available to anyone that you distributed to if/when they ask for it.

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