[Bf-committers] extension clause

[Benjamin Tolputt]

On 22/11/2010 2:59 AM, Martin Poirier wrote:
> "A pay dispute, a network hack, an intern wanting to get some cred online"

Yes, and this was all in the context of the *third party studio*. The pay dispute was between one studio (the developers) and the other (third party), not internal. The other issues were all within the third party studio. I apologise if this is not made clear enough. I was replying to a specific (quoted) email and thought context would help in that regard.

Remember, regardless of how the code is moved beyond of the *third party premises*, as long as it obeys the GPL, it is legal. There may be other consequences, but the GPL prevents any other restrictions being imposed on distributions, and as such is not a protection of distribution once legally outside the copyright holder's "legal bounds" (generally their company network).

It may be illegal (for example) for me to hack their network (& hence be arrested), but it is not illegal for me to distribute any GPL software I find there so long as they recieved it from elsewhere without changing it themselves (i.e. it was distributed to them as is).

I am not advocating such things, but it is something that previous employers of mine have dealt with and, as such, something that other corporations will consider before touching GPL code (as opposed to "using it as is").


-- 
Regards,

Benjamin Tolputt
Analyst Programmer