Question about GPL

[akiratheoni]

My brother just got some image hosting software for our site that's licensed under the GPL. He wanted to personalize it a little bit, like changing a couple of the names of the buttons like 'About us' and 'gallery' and such. So if he were to edit it, would he be obligated to release its source code because of the GPL?

See, I'm aware that if I were to modify something like the GIMP for my own personal use and not release it, I wouldn't be obligated to release the source code... but this is online software, so what happens here?

[yabbadabbadont]

I don't think that you would have to, as you are not distributing the modified code, just using it.

[saulgoode]

As long as you do not share the program with others, you are under no obligations. When you share the code, you must pass on all the benefits that you receive to everyone else.

The Free Software Foundation does have the GNU Affero General Public License (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html) which would require you to release code if it used interactively on the web, but it is a rather new license and very little software uses it at the moment.

[akiratheoni]

Okay, cool, I was just checking to making sure we weren't violating anything :P Thanks everyone.