Hi,
I've recently become affiliated with a small-ish for-profit corporation that makes an industry-specific web-based software application. This application runs on Drupal 6.22, which is licensed under the GPLv2. This is commercial software. The entirety of the software is distributed in encrypted form (usually as an encrypted VM without shell access). We do not offer a copy of the source code to our customers in any form, nor would we presently grant any requests to obtain a copy of any portion of the source code (most of which is stock Drupal). Our company is located in the United States but does business internationally as well as locally.
So I have a two-part question for you:
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Are we in violation of the Drupal license?
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If we are, does anybody actually care?
I'm concerned about the legal implications of our present model, but we currently do not have any sort of consensus on either of these questions. I'm hoping that some of you who are involved with the project will be willing to respond to this anonymous post and share your insights so that I might pass them on to my superiors.
Thank you!
--Anon
P.S. This is a duplicate of a post I made on the general forum. It was suggested that I re-post it here. Please also understand that I am posting this on my own personal initiative, so I cannot disclose any identifying information about my company or its products. Though I haven't sought authorization to post this, I will be showing it to them later if enough of you comment on it.
I'll also setup a corresponding poll to make it easier for my superiors to see at a glance what the prevailing sentiment within the Drupal community is. As an OSS developer, I've been working with the GPL for over 10 years so I already know what the answer will be. I just need you guys to provide a "second opinion". Thanks! =)
Comments
Yes
Yes, you are in violation of the GPL. Very clearly and without any wiggle room. If any of your customers request the source code, you are required by the GPL to provide it to them. If you refuse, then you surrender your own license to the Drupal source granted to you by its contributors and if challenged in court would be liable for damages under US copyright law.
From your description there is no question to be had here. And yes, we do care.
You don't need a lot of people to post comments to show a "consensus". What you need is for your company's attorney to bother to read the GPL and do his due dilligence, as currently he is being professionally negligent. You also cannot rely on "meh, the community doesn't care that much", because all it would take it one contributor of signifiance (there are hundreds) to file suit over the portion of the code for which they hold the copyright. One.
Your company's best course of action is to speak to attorneys at the Software Freedom Law Center to see how you can get into compliance with the GPL. They're not interested in suing or embarrassing companies, just with ensuring that such violations stop.
--Larry Garfield
Former Director of Legal Affairs for the Drupal Association
Advisor to the Drupal Association
Yes. Yes. The only quibble I
The only quibble I have with Larry's comment is:
"there are hundreds"
Assuming you use a typical number of contributed modules, there are thousands of contributors who could decide to file suit.
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Drupal Association
Anon: If you would like to discuss this matter further and in private please contact the Drupal Association and we will help guide through this matter.
http://association.drupal.org/contact
-Jacob Redding
Violation or not
I have similar question. I developed a specific drupal theme. I plan to sell this theme, but it's not much use unless I also sell custom views and panels I built for it. Can i sell this together in a bundle?