[Ardour-Users] Could this solve Ardour's financial headache?

[John Emmas]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "moron" <moron at industrial.org>
To: <ardour-users at lists.ardour.org>
Sent: 08 January 2009 19:05
Subject: Re: [Ardour-Users] Could this solve Ardour's financial headache?
>
> Howdy.  The GPL requires that if you use other GPL source and you
> distribute the results, your source must be made freely available.  You
> can charge a *small* fee for stuff like a CD containing the source but it
> still must be made available.
>
> If you are going to distribute via private SVN wouldn't Ardour have to be
> entirely clean of any GPL source (and then presumably dual licensed)?
>
A small fee is really all we're talking about but let's be clear about the
originator's obligations.

If somebody distributes a binary program that uses GPL code, the license
obligates that person (let's call him "the originator") to distribute the
source code at the same time as the binary or (alternatively) to provide a
notice stating how and where the source code can be obtained.  It DOES NOT
obligate the originator to distribute future changes to the code until the
next time he distributes a corresponding binary build.

If the originator decides to make interim changes available - without
accompanying binaries - there's nothing in the agreement (as far as I can
see) to stop him from making a charge for providing that service.  Therefore
(according to my interpretation of the GPL) an originator can charge for SVN
access to his code without being in breach of the agreement.

John