Abusing the GPL?

Anonymous with good reason, a reader would like to bring this important question to your collective attention: "Our (technically savvy) lawyer has advised my company that 'incidental resources' do not a work derive. For example: If I have a student's version of a development environment whose license does not allow me to distribute code compiled with it for commercial use, I am legally allowed to use the environment to create my ANSI C++ code, which, when I compile it with GCC, I am free to use to whatever commercial end I like. This seems fairly intuitive. (After all, you could have written the same thing in a text editor, and the debugging, etc, that you need the IDE for doesn't actually 'show up' in the final code). Here's the kicker: My company wants to translate this to an abuse of the GPL and has been advised 'full speed ahead!'"

"How, you may ask?

Integrate the highly useful GPL code we're eyeing into our only slightly more complex (but much more lucrative) project, thereby saving us at least 30% of the coding involved. The company then go all the way to production with it, but instead of finally compiling the actual project for distribution, they instead compile a bunch of incomprehensible gobbledygook that just happens to compile to the same bytecode. You know the game: globally replace every function name, variable name, and so on from our code with nonsensical names (or random characters), remove all of the comments, and any other form of obfuscation they can introduce. They will then GPL the obfuscated gobbledygook, which isn't much more useful to anyone than reverse-engineered bytecode would be (it is a complex project). 'Voila!' All the benefits of a huge GPL project and countless thousands of volunteer hours and unreadable, incomprehensible source tree.

For the record: I do not think this is right yet, I have not been able to find any precedent for why the GPL should protect against this kind of abuse.

I'm not trying to snitch on my company -- or lose my job, which is why I am posting anonymously -- but hopefully some lawyers out there could point out some iron-clad legal reason preventing this sort of thing. I've read the GPL through at least a dozen times since yesterday, and so far it looks like our lawyer is right. I have not found any relevant linkage either, as I have mentioned. Links to extended legal analyses of the GPL from a technical standpoint (if any exist) would be the most helpful. All help is appreciated."

Comments

It's clear.

[Eric Sharkey]

The GPL states:

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.

If this isn't the form your company prefers for doing their own internal modifications, then this isn't the source code!

Obfuscated source code is not GPLable.....

[AndyS]

This doesn't seem too hard, although the part is limited. To quote from the GPL

"The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."

In this case - obfuscated code is not the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it - your company isn't going to be making the modifications to the obfuscated version - they're going to use an internal version and make modifications to that instead. In which case they would be in violation of the GPL. A bit of an arse to litigate I would guess.

Breach of copyright

[juju2112]

The way I understand it, if you distribute GPL'd code to the public, you must also distribute the source code. It doesn't matter how much you modify it -- if you fail to release the source code then you are breaking copyright and can be sued.

Wait a sec

[NitsujTPU]

Are we talking about just compilation and use of an IDE? I we talking about compiling against libraries?

We're not talking about including source files.

It all sounds fine to me. I don't pay a royalty to Sun Microsystems just because I compiled under Forte. What am I missing here that you're doing?

From the GPL

[BeBoxer]

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.

If anybody from your firm states in court that the obfuscated version of the code meets this definition, they will be perjuring themselves. Your company is not going to be having the developers maintain the obfuscated code. Any claim that the obfuscated code is actually the "source code" is a lie. Claiming that it is isn't any more true than claiming that your intermediate .s files are the source code.

Tell your company they should hire better lawyers. And find another job, because your employers appear to be a bunch of dishonest pricks.

Its a derivitive work.

[dbc]

Here are a couple of data points. IANALBIAMTO -- I am not a laywer, but I am married to one -- who just happens to have practiced in the area of software licensing for 10+ years. And I have worked with a couple of other software licensening attorneys over the years on open source issues. All three of these folks (with probably comibined 40+ years experience in the area) would have a consistent answer for anyone who suggested this: "What you are doing is a derivitive work, clearly covered by the GPL. It is clearly not allowed by the terms of the license. Now stand still while I whack you with my clue-stick."

This is not legal advice. You need some.