[plug] Customer wants to move away from Windows but...

[Cameron Patrick]

Bernd Felsche wrote:

> > Another interesting difference is the difference in licensing. If you
> > had an employer that wanted to use a UNIX-like operating system for an
> > embedded project (that would be sold on the open market) you may decide
> > to go with something like NetBSD if your boss has no intention of
> > distributing the changes in the source code. This way you avoid
> > violating the GPL.
> 
> Which part of GPL requires that you reveal the source code of
> derivative works, or those which use GPL'd functionality?

The part that says, if you distribute binaries of a GPL-derivative
work you have to either distribute the source with it or offer to do
so.  Quote:

| 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under
| Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
| Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
| 
|       a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
|       source code, which must be distributed under the terms of
|       Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software
|       interchange; or,
| 
|       b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
|       years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
|       cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
|       machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
|       distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a
|       medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
| 
|       c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the
|       offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative
|       is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
|       received the program in object code or executable form with such
|       an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.) 
| 
| The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
| making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
| code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
| associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
| control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
| special exception, the source code distributed need not include
| anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
| form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
| operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
| itself accompanies the executable.
| 
| If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
| access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
| access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
| distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
| compelled to copy the source along with the object code

Cameron.