
In acquiring Merrill Lynch, must Bank of America open source its software? - nickb
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10043029-16.html
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pmorici
isn't the distributor of open source software only required to give a copy to
the source to those people which they sold the software too. since Bank of
America is the only purchaser if they are the only ones who get the source and
if they don't want to share that is their business...

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sjs382
Yes, you are only obligated to provide the source to those you have provided
the binaries to.

This is a non-story.

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anabis
I though that it had to provide it to "all third parties"

GPL2 "2 b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof,
to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of
this License."

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notauser
That is an _option_ you can take if you do not wish to distribute the source
code directly with the binaries.

The GPL is actually pretty flexible on how you get code to people, and
provides a number of routes. For many projects (especially public ones - but
also for things like D-Link routers) just throwing up an open-access website
with the code on it is easier than passing out code with software/firmware
updates.

The minimum requirement is that the people you distribute the software to must
get the source code of the binary version you give them.

