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View Full Version : Hypothetical GPL Situation


munky99999
July 8th, 2009, 02:25 AM
Lets say Company X writes and has a private program. Lets call it Program X. They copyright it under the usual open source GPL 3 license. They decide not to publish it anywhere. Which is their right. This means their software isnt going to be published. Here comes Disgruntled employee X takes the copy removes GPL. Places his own GPL on it and sets it free on the internet.

Copies make it onto Ubuntu as a good app that is commonly used.

What liability is there ultimately?

Would we all be sued for copyright infringement? Would cease and desists go out?
aysiu
July 8th, 2009, 02:35 AM
I believe the disgruntled employee would have to get the permission of everyone else in the company before changing the license... and even then the license could be changed for only future versions.

The one that was released as GPL will always be GPL'ed.
munky99999
July 8th, 2009, 03:02 AM
I believe the disgruntled employee would have to get the permission of everyone else in the company before changing the license... and even then the license could be changed for only future versions.

The one that was released as GPL will always be GPL'ed.

To the company. They didnt know their program had ever been released.
To the internet. They only knew the program to have came from the disgruntled employee.

Ultimately yes the disgruntled employee would be in for a world of hurt legally.

I'm speaking about as a member of the internet who certainly hasnt contacted and verified the authenticity of the original authors and such of all the programs.

Copyright infringement being the copying of the original program and essentially speaking... considering the lawsuit happy nature in copyright infringement field.

Which realistically I could go download music through a p2p third party. I wont really know if it's legitimate or not. Sort of the same idea.
TBOL3
July 8th, 2009, 04:46 AM
both the employee and the internet users of the app would be liable.

However, it is very likely that the internet users will have a very generous chance to change theitr program (or pay for it, or use it under the usual GPLv3).