Hacker News Reader

Comment by pygy_ | Hacker News Reader

Hypothetically: the employer gave you a copy of the modified software (by having you modify it). He's bound by the license and so are you?

View on HN

From the GPL section 2:

> You may convey covered works to others for the sole purpose of having them make modifications exclusively for you, or provide you with facilities for running those works, provided that you comply with the terms of this License in conveying all material for which you do not control copyright. Those thus making or running the covered works for you must do so exclusively on your behalf, under your direction and control, on terms that prohibit them from making any copies of your copyrighted material outside their relationship with you.

> Conveying under any other circumstances is permitted solely under the conditions stated below. Sublicensing is not allowed; section 10 makes it unnecessary.

So based on my reading, your employer can convey the software to you without complying with the normal copyleft terms.

Your employer is an entity (a person, an LLC, or a corporation), you work for that entity. The entity is allowed to distribute it among themselves but the entity prevents itself from distributing to others (by following the license constraints). You, the employee, do not gain the right to the software because the employer did not give you, personally, any permission to the software.

Only once the software has been distributed by the employer to a third party do you, the employee, get rights to that GPL software. You can replace GPL with other licenses, the premise remains the same: an employee is part of the employer and not a separate entity.

If the employer distributes to the third party then the employee still doesn't have the rights. But the third party can distribute to anybody.

Hmm GPL states any distributed modifications must be shared. So the employee does not violate any licenses by snagging a copy of the code that was distributed. I’m sure there may be other violations that may cause an involuntary termination event, but per the license the world now has the right (and the company is violating the GPL by not offering the code)

I will add if the company fixes their GPL violation then the employee is now violating the new license (since the GpL licensed code wasn’t valid in the first place). So it is best to not pirate any code even if you think it should be open (until the employer has confirmed in some way)

License is between two parties, world doesn't have any rights. I can see how two companies can use GPL to share the code they both use internally, and nobody else has the right to use it unless one of the companies "conveys" it to them.

Interesting. If you were given the copy on a computer owned by your employer, is it your copy or theirs?

I believe it's theirs.

If I loan you my laptop brimming with free software, and you use it for a day, have I redistributed the software to you? No. You had use of a computer you didn't own executing the software, no copy was made. It's no different from the well-known SaaS loophole the AGPL attempts to close.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com