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Comment by ig1 | Hacker News Reader

Flagged because article completely misunderstands how GPL works. GPL doesn't apply if you modify source-code to use internally, it only applies if you distribute it externally to third party users.

[GPL not mentioned in article; my recollection from the original court documents is that the code was largely LGPL and GPL code]

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I believe the article didn't imply steal in the legal sense, but rather in the moral sense of not contributing changes back and assuming ownership.

I also see no mention of the GPL, only open source. So the license could've been BSD or MPL etc.

Also this part might be illegal:

>Later, at his trial, his lawyer flashed two pages of computer code: the original, with its open source license on top, and a replica, with the open source license stripped off and replaced by the Goldman Sachs license.

The latter is obviously illegal, but I am an advocate of the GPL and don't take issue with someone extending GPLed code for internal use and not releasing their changes. The point is to maintain user freedom of software, and if the users are the company itself modifying it and never distributing it to someone without source access, even if they never make it publicly available, that is still ethical.

I'd like them to share the information they create, but I think it steps on others rights if you start trying to force disclosure of information creation.

I've wondered about this. Doesn't your non-disclosure and nob compete contract with your employees conflict with your organization's "distribution" of open source code to the employees? They should be able to do WHATEVER THEY WANT with it under the license. Or does GPL somehow handle "internally" vs "externally"?

No conflict. You own your changes to GPL code unless you distribute that software to others. Only then do you need to distribute the source of your changes.

But you the individual shouldnt be able to force another individual - a contractor, say - to restrict their freedom in using this free software, even though they are working for you. Right?

Depends on exactly what you mean.

Let's say that I'm employing you to write a trading platform. You research the field, find some OSS that can serve as a base to work from and modify it to my specs. I own the modified code and can report you to the DA if you take it and try to sell it somewhere else.

Now if instead, you just take the original OSS you found, and the knowledge you gained working from me and go somewhere else to build a trading platform based on that original source, I have no case against you (assuming you aren't using my trade secrets) since you haven't taken anything I own.

Does that help?

> I own the modified code and can report you to the DA if you take it and try to sell it somewhere else.

How does this work with the original copyrighted code? If I take 10k lines of an open source project, tack on an echo or a comment or some nonsense, do I suddenly get to claim ownership of the rest of the code? It would make sense that you could own the delta, but you should only own your delta, not the original code.

If a piece of code has parts created/owned by different entities, in order to copy them you need permission from everyone of them. You copy that resulting 10k line program but don't have permission for my delta that's a single comment? You're violating copyright.

The point of GPL is that you own the entirety of the source with your changes. Remove your changes and you're back to the original source which everyone "owns."

"Owns" in quotes because that's not ownership, it's a license to use, modify and distribute the code within certain limitations. I've been dealing with IP lawyers recently over exactly this issue and they're being sticklers over the difference.

The GPL specifically states that using code within an organization is not distributing it. Further, if employees (or even contractors) are paid to modify the code, the organization retains all rights to it, not the employees nor contractors. It's even within Goldman Sach's rights to prevent the release of the code, as they didn't distribute it to 3rd parties.

Where does it say that? What is the relevant quote and exegesis?

Read the definitions part at the top. What constitutes an individual and what constitutes distribution.

And what your rights and obligations are throughout the rest of the licence.

You don't distribute the GPL'ed code to your employees, in the same way that you don't 'distribute' your internal code, your MS Windows licences, and your computers,desks and everything else. All of those tools still belong to the organization, and employees are using them on behalf of it - they're not 'given' any of those items in the legal sense.

That's not inherently true of open source and I didn't see where the article singled out a specific license. There are several variants of GPL the AGPL has clauses that say you still have to provide source in cases short of distribution of the software itself.

Yes but AGPL is rarely used, the vast majority of FOSS uses GPL or a less restrictive license...

According to the article Goldman deleted the existing license and replaced it with their own. Probably a violation of most licenses.

If the application or source code is distributed then sometimes removing the license would be a violation. But most open source licenses allow you to make private forks that you keep private. If that is your desire then changing out the license disclaimer to say "Some or all of this code is the property of X, do not distribute under any circumstance" actually makes a lot of sense. If the original license was left in place it would be easy to think that the files in the private fork where publicly distributed. Obviously they don't have permission to change the actual license on the originally public content.

It seems like a very bad idea to remove a copyright notice from a file. Suppose the next developer to see the file doesn't know its origin, then incorporates it into a product that is distributed.

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