Re: GPL and inhouse use?

[John Hasler]

Merijn de Weerd wrote:
> As I said to David, I was talking about code that offers a service to the
> public.

So every Web site, every shell provider, every search engine running any
GPL software would have to distribute source to every user.

> In other words, a public performance of the work.

Nonsense.  From Title 17 CHAPTER 1 § 101 Definitions:

  A computer program is a set of statements or instructions to be used
  directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain
  result.

  ...

  To perform a work means to recite, render, play, dance, or act it, either
  directly or by means of any device or process or, in the case of a motion
  picture or other audiovisual work, to show its images in any sequence or
  to make the sounds accompanying it audible.


  To perform or display a work publicly means

  (1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any
      place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal
      circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or
 
 (2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the
     work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of
     any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of
     receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or
     in separate places and at the same time or at different times.


-- 
John Hasler 
john@dhh.gt.org
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA