Posted by jteichma on September 16, 2011 at 7:41pm
Hello, I looked on the forum here and can't find the answer to this question. Apologies if it has been asked before. Say we are using drupal 6.2 and have made some some custom modules that we don't intend to distribute at this time. If we now engage with a 3rd party development vendor for more modules/features work, we will need to share our code base with them to perform that work. Does that constitute a distribution?
From the little I can find on this, it seems that it depends on the contractual relationship with the vendor. Is a contractual relationship with a vendor (or host, etc.) OK when you are developing on GPL2? How is this normally handled? Thanks in advance.
~John
Comments
As you need to give a third
As you need to give a third party your modification, this counts as distribution. A third party is a third party so this is the standard distribution case you can read about nearly everywhere. See as well Why does the GPL require including a copy of the GPL with every copy of the program?
One work around
This has not been vetted yet by a lawyer and I have a similar issue that MOT has commented on.
If the third party works directly for you, it is the same as an employee. You would have to contract with them directly. I have just added language to my contracts that state that all work not yet paid for, still is under my control.
Language in the contract states that the client and any other third party assigns all rights back to my company.
Once the contract is fulfilled, the client gets full GPL rights
I just do not know any other way to protect myself until the contract is finished.