ejabberd - Comments for "Am I required to publish"

Selling a service, not object code

mfoss — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:42:10 +0000

If Facebook sells to Yahoo object code (binary files, installers) of their modified ejabberd, then the Section 3 of the GPLv2 license says this to Facebook:

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,
...

Let's see your scenario:

arneldomingo wrote:

If facebook will charge fees to the the users in order to use their chat, will they need to publish their modifications?

In that case, Facebook sells to Tommy a service, not the ejabberd object code. In this case, Section 3 is irrelevant. The other sections of the GPLv2 seem also irrelevant in this scenario.

If facebook charges...

arneldomingo — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:42:42 +0000

Hi badlop,

Thank you for your reply.

If facebook will charge fees to the the users in order to use their chat, will they need to publish their modifications?

Thanks

You can keep modules private for yourself and your organization

mfoss — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 08:50:34 +0000

arneldomingo wrote:

Does the GPL license requires me to publish the source code of the ejabberd modules I'll be developing?

There is a direct answer in the GPL FAQ page. You are not required to release the binary or the source code of your program, or your modules:

Quote:

The GPL does not require you to release your modified version, or any part of it. You are free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them. This applies to organizations (including companies), too; an organization can make a modified version and use it internally without ever releasing it outside the organization.

If you later release a program that contains ejabberd + your modules (and call it ejabid-superplus or whatever), then you are required to publish the source code of your changes:

Quote:

But if you release the modified version to the public in some way, the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to the program's users, under the GPL. Thus, the GPL gives permission to release the modified program in certain ways, and not in other ways; but the decision of whether to release it is up to you.

Let's see some examples:

The ejabberd packages in Debian contain some patches and additional modules. As those packages are released, also the changes must be released: pkg-ejabberd.git
Facebook modified ejabberd and uses it in their chat system. They didn't release, publish or sell installers of their ejabberd, so they don't need to release their changes.
Many people modify ejabberd for their needs when developing an instant messaging system. They offer a free, or a payed service. They never tell what they use (ejabberd, Apache2, Couchdb, ...?). They don't release modified binaries. So, they don't need to release their changes. However, they decide to release some of their changes, because those can be useful for other ejabberd users. One example: Chesspark's Better Ejabberd Vhosts