Quoting Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult (enrico.weigelt@???):

> Entirely different scenario. They don't own the whole kernel - they just
> picked it from the net, changed it and redistribute the changed version.
> This is exactly where the GPL's viral effect is supposed to kick in.

OK, the reason I posed multiple hypotheticals is that your original
claim was categorical and didn't clarify what scenario you were talking
about. Let's move on to #2.

> >Hypothetical #2. I find a copy of a very nice, fast, good-looking X11
> >(FLTK-based) MUA by Pim van Riezen named Post Office, that used to be
> >freely distributed on the Internet but has vanished after van Riezen
> >discontinued maintenance. I offer you a source code instance for €10.
> >Please explain to me why I may not offer to sell you that codebase.
>
> That's just the distribution case. You're just acting as the postman,
> and of course you may charge a free for that. But you can't deny the
> receiver to redistribute it again.

Ah, _now_ you're talking about 'deny[ing] the receiver [permission] to
redistribute it again.' But you weren't before. I wish you'd taken the
trouble to be clearer. It would have saved time.

Before, you were suggesting there's some reason why people might not be
permitted to _sell_ software issued under GPL. You wrote;

these grsecurity folks are *selling* kernel patches ?
how is that compatible w/ the gpl ?

It's compatible with the GPL because selling copylefted software is
always and everywhere lawful and in no way prohibited by the licence
terms or anything else.

Offering copylefted code for sale and then purporting to prohibit its
subsequent redistribution are entirely different things. You spoke as
if the one implies the other, which is just not so.


> If you redistribute the binary, you'll also have to hand out the source.

Well, or accompany it with a written offer good for at least three years
as described in GPLv2 clause 3b, or, for qualifying examples,
information about availability as described in GPLv3 clause 3c. (If
we're talking about [A]GPLv3, the references are slightly different.

One of use used to be the unofficial software licensing expert at VA
Linux Systems, and I'm pretty sure it's not you. ;->


> Seems we had a misunderstanding: of course you can sell it, but you
> can't deny the customers to redistribute it again.

Problem: Nobody cited in recent discussion has purported to do that --
not to mention the fact that you didn't say that before.


> This raises the question why anybody should pay at all, once it's
> redistributed for free.

FSF continues to sell copies of GNU software, FWIW. ;->

To ask why buyers buy and why sellers sell, you'll just have to ask
them yourself. (Over on OSI licencse-discuss, an endless supply of
people keep coming in demanding that we explain and justify open source
business models to them. They inevitably go away empty-handed, as it's
just Not Our Jobs, Man.)