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Ask Slashdot: Where Do You Draw the Line On GPL V2 Derived Works and Fees?
First time accepted submitter Shifuimam writes "I downloaded a DOSBox port for Android recently to get back into all the games of my childhood. Turns out that the only free distribution available hasn't been updated in nearly two years, so I looked for alternatives. There are two on Google Play — DOSBox Turbo and "DOSBot". Both charge a fee — DOSBox Turbo is $3.99; DOSBot is $0.99. The developer of DOSBot says on his Google Play entry that he will not release the source code of his application because it's not GPL, even though it's derived from source released under GPL v2 — this is definitely a violation of the license. The developer of DOSBox Turbo is refusing to release the source for his application unless you pay the $3.99 to "buy" a license of it. The same developer explicitly states that the "small" fee (although one might argue that $3.99 is pretty expensive for an OSS Android app) is to cover the cost of development. Unless I'm misreading the text of GPL v2, a fee can only be charged to cover the cost of the distribution of a program or derived work, not the cost of development. And, of course, it doesn't cost the developer anything for someone to log in to Google Play and download their app. In fact, from what I can tell, there's a one-time $25 fee to register for Google Checkout, after which releasing apps is free. Where do you draw the line on this? What do you do in this kind of situation?"
The GPL doesn't mandate that the software/source code be released for free, it mandates that the source code MUST accompany the binary if (and only if) the binary is distributed.
For example, I work for Random Fortune 500 Co. and take a copy of DOSBox, heavily modify it and deploy it to all the workstations in my organization. At no point am I publicly distributing a binary, thus nobody has the right to demand I release my source code.
Example 2: I decide to take the DOSBox source code and make an Android port. I put this port in the app store and sell it for $5. Unless you purchase the application, again you have no right to request the source code. If 100 people purchase my application, they have the right to request the modified source code. If you buy it, you can request the source code.
Once you get the source code, you can do whatever you want with it, within the bounds of the GPL. You can give it away for free, package it up and resell it (modified or unmodified), or never give it away to anyone!
everyday is another shooter.
Thanks for the very lively and interesting discussion. The OP e-mailed a few days ago asking for the source code for DosBox Turbo. I informed him that I make available the source code to my users whom I've distributed a binary to and that the GPL specifically allows for this. I also make available the source code to the upsteam DosBox devs, and forwarded them copies not too long ago. Furthermore, I've contacted the aDosBox devs and offered to port many of my improvements into the free aDosBox software for everyone to benefit. I've never heard back from the aDosBox devs, and I am assuming it is a dead project, as there has been no activity in over a year and no response to my messages in over 4 months.
While I respect the OP's opinion that (actual price on Google play is $3.49) is too much to pay (don't forget Google takes 30% off the top), the reality is, a majority of my time is spent providing user support, fixing bugs in various Android devices that my users have, and implementing new features and suggestions from my user-base. I've amassed a collection of no less than 8 different Android devices, so that I can reproduce a wide range of reported bugs.
The OP and I may disagree on what my time is worth; however, we did have a constructive discussion about perhaps moving to a model of charging for the value add-ons (which I currently provide for free), although, I'm not sure how easy that would be within the Google Play framework. I also suggested to him that there were numerous avenues for him to obtain a copy of the binary free of charge if price was a factor (one only has to search the various Android warez sites) and that I had no problems with him going that route.
While the OP may disagree with me, I believe that being able to charge for GPL software (and comply with the GPL) allows for development of better software with features and bug fixes that would normally never occur. Believe me, it is very time-consuming to sit around for hours answering user e-mails, or spending hours to fix hard to reproduce bugs that occur only on a specific version of Android or a specific device. Few, if any people, would do that kind of tedious work for free.
So, I did pay the $3.99 for DOSBox Turbo, installed it on my phone, and moved it to the SD card. When mounting that as a disk drive, the only thing I can see related to "dosbox" is .../.android_secure/com.fishstix.dosbox-1.asec, an 8.5 MB binary file that is apparently encrypted. When I run the application itself, it does not include anything that looks like a link or other offer to the corresponding source code. My conclusion: This is a clear and blatant violation of both the letter and the spirit of the GPL. Now will you admit that you're wrong?
The GPLv2 is not deficient in the manner you claim, at least in this case. This is a commercial distribution in a binary form, which means section 3(c) cannot apply. If installing the binary form also installs the complete corresponding source code, then the distributor satisfies section 3(a). If it does not, he must comply with section 3(b), which allows any third party to request the (complete corresponding) source code. The implication from the article summary is that 3(b) does apply, and that $3.99 is more than the "cost of physically performing source distribution" -- a blank CD plus US postage for same is certainly less than that.
I, for one, am not willing to pay $3.99 for an experiment where the outcome seems so likely to be unrewarding. I would guess that the source code would be incomplete and/or would not correspond to the version that one can get through Google Play, and that the distributor would also claim a GPLv2-incompatible license for some of the Android-specific bits. Because I do not hold a copyright that would be infringed in such a case, it is not worth my time or money to confirm my guess. Even if that guess were wrong, I would not get $3.99 worth of value from either the source or binary form of the app.
The source I've distributed to my end users includes all the necessary Android-specific bits to compile a working executable just like the one in the Google play store.