From: Alejandro Colomar <alx-AT-kernel.org>
Hi all,
As you know, I’ve been maintaining the Linux man-pages project for the last 4 years as a voluntary. I’ve been doing it in my free time, and no company has sponsored that work at all. At the moment, I cannot sustain this work economically any more, and will temporarily and indefinitely stop working on this project. If any company has interests in the future of the project, I’d welcome an offer to sponsor my work here; if so, please let me know.
Have a lovely day! Alex
I might be misunderstanding the licenses so correct me if wrong.
Can companies use GPL code internally without release as long as the thing written with it doesn’t get directly released to the public?
… or does GPL pollute everything even if used internally for commercial purposes?
I think it kicks in when you distribute. For example, let’s say I have a fork of some GPL software and I’m maintaining it for myself. I don’t need to share the changes if I’m the only one using it.
The point is that people using a software should be able to read and modify (and share) the source when they want to.
IANAL and all that good stuff
If it’s only internal then technically the internal users should have access to the source code. Only the people who receive the software get the rights and freedoms of the GPL, no one else.