license - how to skip GPLv2 [closed]

Question

Question:

Consider we have a GPLv2 licensed project, If we try to charge a fee for any warranty which we provide (e.g. we will ask for a huge amount that no one will ever pay), then, can someone skip our warranty and ask for the source only?

I mean there was nothing mentioned about this aspect or did we miss something!?

Background:

We have read lot of questions about General Public License v2 and know that it's like a virus and everything that does touch it get open-source:

• We just use/need a single component/library in our project which is under GPL v2
• Our client which we developed the app for needs our project closed source
• We asked but not even linking exception was granted to us
• So we have decided and started to search for license leaks in GPL

Any GPLv2 leaks we found is listed below:

• As long as you don't distribute the copy or a modified version, you don't have to open your project (useful for JS libraries available online).
• Making GPL source available does not mean download, in fact, we are able to:
  • wait until we get a written request for the source
  • and we are allowed to charge a "reasonable" handling/copying charge before sending of DVD with source
• Tivoization
• The GPL does not contain any passage stating that license fees cannot be asked for. The GPL faq list states explicitly that one can ask for license fees for software under the GPL (but they are still allowed to redistribute it for free).
• We can charge a fee for any warranty from our side as well.

Answer 1

Enforcement of GPL is no longer a rare event. Trying to find a loophole in the licensing is literally betting the livelihood of your company on that alleged loophole. Different groups attack companies that do not comply.

The traditional legal action would be from non-profits.

These not-for-profit groups encouraged everyone to “play by the rules” and occasionally took action, including appropriate legal action, against those who didn’t.

That said, I’m thrilled to see basically individual bounty hunters taking part in legal actions.

These actions are undertaken by a copyright holder against an alleged infringer, fueled by the pursuit of significant monetary claims.

Best of all your competitors may now go after your company for violations.

CoKinetic is not a copyright holder in this matter and hence not claiming that Panasonic’s alleged failure to adhere to the GPL is resulting in some copyright claim that CoKinetic may have against Panasonic. Rather, CoKinetic is claiming that Panasonic, by failing to play by the rules that everyone else is adhering to, is engaging in anti-competitive behavior and that this conduct has directly injured CoKinetic’s business and that, more generally, as a member of the public CoKinetic is an intended third party beneficiary of the GPL

I can see a fourth risk being ex-internal staff. By taking this action you put a bounty on your company that any fired employee can pursue.

If you decide to take this path of violating the GPL, I have high hopes that you will be caught.

Answer 2

Can someone skip our warranty and ask for the source only?

Yes. Read: GPLv2 >> 3 >> b: If you do not offer the source for download, then you must:

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

thanks for the answer in the comments have just extracted it above to help others...

Above mentioned aspect of GPLv2 means:

• We can release one version.
• Then we just need to hope no one does ask us in the next three years about the source for that release.

But still:

• If we can make a fake and bullet-proof document,
• Which proves we released it before three years then maybe ...
• No, the best thing that would happen this way is that people will call you out for non-compliance (and draw attention to it) and the worst thing is that you may get sued into bankruptcy, since we are not ever able to make it 100% bullet-proof, we are not the mafia after all ;-)