On Tue, 2002-04-09 at 09:56, Giles Nunn wrote:
My question is: as we haven't bought the server and software from them, just a filtering service which happens to use it, how does the GPL apply to this situation?
If it's GPLed (if it's Debian, much of it is), then they are taking advantage of the GPL in order to be allowed to distribute the software at all. If they violate the terms of the GPL, they loose the right to distribute any GPLed software, the license of which they violated, permanently. They can only resume distribution if they receive new permission from the copyright holders of all the software involved. When you consider the number of copyright holders you'd need to contact to recover your permission to distribute Debian, it's liable to be an impossible task to recover from a violation. As a Debian developer, they are almost certainly distributing something for which I'm the copyright holder, so I would be very interested to find out if they are violating the GPL. So, is the product supplied with the source, or at least an offer to provide the source, for all the GPL components, and their modifications to those, if any? Please would you check. If not, and if they are trying to restrict you from getting to the source on the machine (if it exists) I think they're probably in violation, because the distribution is meant to be "on a medium customarily used for software interchange" --- the hard disk of a locked down machine does not qualify IMO.
Apart from a web interface for managing the system and the filtering categories etc., the database of categorised sites is the only special thing on the system and is the main justification for withholding root access. I suppose that from an admin point of view it is much easier for them if no one has access to mess anything up. The system works well, in general, but it would be nice to have the option of tweaking it to suit ourselves.
I don't like this trend. I seems to me that they are depriving you of the freedoms that the GPL was supposed to ensure that you received. Of course, they are probably the copyright holders for the blacklist, but it would be nice to check that they are not simply stealing the one from squidguard, say, without propper credit, and possibly in violation of the license. I'd break into it just to have a look around, even if I didn't plan on changing a single byte on the system. Cheers, Phil. -- Say no to software patents! http://petition.eurolinux.org/ |)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560] http://www.hands.com/ |-| HANDS.COM Ltd. http://www.uk.debian.org/ |(| 10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London E18 1NE ENGLAND