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As I said, it is legal, but strikes me as unnecessarily unfriendly. It is likely that I have unrealistic expectations, but putting their modified source code on some "archived" GitHub or similar would have been easy and free. Looking around at Purism, Pine, and remarkable, they don't make it that easy either, so I guess my complaint shouldn't be directed at Helm specifically.

My point is that we're not in 1997 anymore (date this GNU document was written), and thus I cannot believe that mailing disks is the easy way to do this. They are making this deliberately difficult, for both them and their users, by doing this over mail.

As for discouraging companies to deal with GPL, I am with you. I think this is a little bit different though, as they are not adding much value on top of the open-source code...

> but putting their modified source code on some "archived" GitHub or similar would have been easy and free.

You still need to set up mirroring to keep it up-to-date, and janitor tags so that it matches whatever the customer actually received.

Much more importantly, you run the risk of a classic 'whoops I pushed an API key' blunder if your code gets auto-mirrored to a public repo.

Writing "if you're a human and you want the source code we'll give it to you" costs them about thirty seconds, satisfies the FSF, and carries zero risks.

> Much more importantly, you run the risk of a classic 'whoops I pushed an API key' blunder if your code gets auto-mirrored to a public repo.

Thousands of competent projects and millions of incompetent projects figured it out. This is not a reason to distribute source code digitally. Any use of this reasoning just makes the user seem stupid and unable to reduce the risk on this trivial problem.

Do the customers have the right to republish the source? Under the GPL (I checked GPLv3) I don't think they do, but this section (my emphasis) is unclear to me:

> You may convey a covered work in object code form under the terms of sections 4 and 5, provided that you also convey the machine-readable Corresponding Source under the terms of this License, in one of these ways...

Is "under the terms of this License" a clarifying clause that narrows down exactly which "Corresponding Source" we are talking about? That doesn't seem necessary given that "Corresponding Source" is already well defined. Alternatively, does it mean that you must convey the Corresponding Source and grant a GPLv3 license to the conveyees for that source? If so, it could be written more clearly.

If my second interpretation is correct, surely it doesn't matter much that the company has a slightly user-unfriendly policy to providing their source code - someone will just mirror the code on Github anyway.

> Do the customers have the right to republish the source?

The GPL definitely allows you this. What you are given is code that is as GPL as the one they originally got, which covers free distribution. This is the main mechanism that serves the purpose of the GPL.

Can you explain how that's expressed in the GPL? Is it the section I asked about, so the GPL's "convey the machine-readable Corresponding Source under the terms of this License" is your "[source] code that is as GPL as the [object code] they originally got"?

Alternatively, maybe it's section 4

> You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium

Which is a bit strange, because it's granting you a licence on something (the source code) you haven't necessarily actually got yet, so normally this grant of license would live with the IP it actually applies to. But I understand why it's necessary for the GPL to work in a more complicated way than that, because its purpose is to be viral and to bind the recipient to granting the same license when he distributes modified versions.

Your question doesn't make sense to me. You keep going off on tangents about possible interpretations. Can you go StackOverflow for me here and provide the minimal complete form of your actual question?

The second.

The intent of the "under the terms of this License" clause here is to require the conveyed "Corresponding Source" to be GPLv3 licensed as well.

On a lay reading, this could also be interpreted as "in the manner specified by this license". Whether that's how the courts would understand it is a question for a lawyer. It may hinge on what, specifically, was originally licensed under the GPL: the source code or the binary artifacts.

> Their customers have a right to receive a copy of the source. But the company is not obliged to host an online accessible version of it.

While true, this is misleading - if distributing under the "Written offer" term (rather than including the source code alongside the binaries), everyone has a right to receive a copy of the source.

They put a offer to distribute the source code on their legal page: https://orders.thehelm.com/pages/legal#open-source: "You may request a copy of the source by e-mailing: support@thehelm.com with "Source for Helm Personal Server" in the subject line. This offer is valid to anyone in receipt of this information". I emailed asking to plz gimme teh codez, let's see what I get!

Then why isn’t it okay for companies to just hide behind a “nominal legal fee” of $100k to release the source?

Because that’s baldly unreasonable

Because the GPL forbids that.

"You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)"

Strong agree, but I still think they might be missing a trick.

Speaking purely personally, despite not currently being in the business of physically-distributing GPL'd object code: put a copy of the corresponding source inside the product. Storage is sufficiently cheap nowadays that this isn't nearly as onerous as it used to be.

For bonus points, bootstrap the image then use it to build itself from its included sources for distribution.

Hypothetically, could one not use this to get around GPL by modifying GPL software and agreeing to make the changes available to others but only at a ridiculous price?

My understanding is that the customers would be allowed to distribute/modify the source at that point though so you're not really getting around the GPL.

No, the GPL covers this case. In the FAQ linked in the parent comment, check out the "High or low fees, and the GNU GPL" section.

In particular, section 6(b) of GPLv3:

> Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by a written offer, valid for at least three years and valid for as long as you offer spare parts or customer support for that product model, to give anyone who possesses the object code either (1) a copy of the Corresponding Source for all the software in the product that is covered by this License, on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange, for a price no more than your reasonable cost of physically performing this conveying of source, or (2) access to copy the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge.

Gotcha, thank you!