AMIOPEN: Linux, free software and its industry. (Was: Loki Software seems to have filed for bankruptcy.)

[Monty Harder]

8/20/01 11:47:03 AM, Mike Coleman <mkc at mathdogs.com> wrote:

>If you're a commercial entity and you're making a number of copies
>proportional to the size of your customer base, and putting it on machines
>they have physical control over, that sure sounds like distribution.

  What if the computers remain physically located at the company's site?  It's basically in the ASP 
business, offering to customers the service that the 
software provides, but not in any way putting that software into someone else's hands.

  Say, for example, that our good friends at Google make certain mods to GNU software, and use it 
to serve up searches at blistering speed.  Do they have any 
obligation to share the changes they've made?

  It's not that I necessarily disagree with you - I'm just trying to figure out where The Line is 
here.