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I m thinking of using iTextSharp, which is licensed under Affero GPL, in an internal closed-source WinForms project. No one outside my company will be using it.

GPL (and Affero GPL as well) typically demands that the source be provided with the binary. Given that this is an internal project, do I need to provide my employees with the source code of the project?

Martin Beckett
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AngryHacker
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3 Answers3

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If you confine use of the library to within the walls of your corporation, you do not have to distribute the source (even to your employees), because you are not redistributing (selling or giving away a software product that includes the library) outside of your organization.

The GPL allows you to freely use the code inside a corporation without restrictions, and that includes (by necessity) your ability to prevent your employees (as a matter of company policy) from distributing the source code outside the organization.

From the Gnu Licensing FAQ:

Is making and using multiple copies within one organization or company “distribution”?
No, in that case the organization is just making the copies for itself. As a consequence, a company or other organization can develop a modified version and install that version through its own facilities, without giving the staff permission to release that modified version to outsiders.

However, when the organization transfers copies to other organizations or individuals, that is distribution. In particular, providing copies to contractors for use off-site is distribution.

Robert Harvey
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    The AGPL has a few more restrictions, if you distribute a service generated from an AGPL app then you are distributing the app. – Martin Beckett Aug 12 '11 at 03:31
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    @martin: Yes, but if you are using the site or service internally (i.e. it's on the intranet, and not on an internet-facing web server), then it is not considered redistribution, and you are still OK. The GPL differs from the AGPL in that, if you are using open-source software to run a *public* web site or service, the GPL doesn't consider *the use of that site or service by the public* redistribution, but the AGPL does. – Robert Harvey Aug 12 '11 at 03:33
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    your answer is correct. I was just pointing out that you linked to the GPL not AGPL faq, although for this use the difference doesn't matter – Martin Beckett Aug 12 '11 at 12:32
  • It doesn't matter anyway. A license cannot set its own scope, and whether you are 'distributing' the software or not is a question of license scope. (Copyright law says you cannot distribute a work without a license.) By law, if you are not making the copyrighted work itself available, you are not distributing it. – David Schwartz Aug 13 '11 at 12:58
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    @David - the license can set any requirements it wants. I can licence my software not to be used commercially, not to be used to control nuclear power stations, or not for use by ginger haired people. The license can apply to the use of the software and it's output - not just it's own distribution – Martin Beckett Aug 14 '11 at 15:39
  • Sure, you can, but then people are also free not to agree to the license, in which case it doesn't affect them. They can't distribute your work without agreeing to the license because copyright law says they can't. But your license can't change what constitutes "distribution". If they want to do things that aren't distribution, your license cannot stop them. – David Schwartz Aug 14 '11 at 16:55
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    @DavidSchwartz If people don't agree with the license, then they have no right to use the software at all. – gnasher729 Jun 29 '18 at 21:37
  • @gnasher729 That is completely and utterly wrong under US law. When a person owns a computer that has software on it, they have the right to do anything they want with that computer and the software on it unless some law says they can't do some particular thing. Absolutely no US law requires a person to have a license to use a work covered by copyright. If you own a book, you don't need a license to read it. Please show me the law that says you need some special right to use a copyrighted work you legally acquired. You cannot do it because there is no such law. Read 17 USC 106. – David Schwartz Jun 30 '18 at 04:54
  • @DavidSchwartz But most software is legally acquired by accepting a license agreement. License agreements can restrict usage, reverse engineering, and other activities to which you may otherwise be entitled. For example, in Blizzard v. bnetd, bnetd reverse engineered and cloned Blizzard's game server interface, which they argued the DMCA gave them the right to do for interoperability. But Blizzard's EULA forbade reverse engineering, so they lost the case: "Appellants contractually accepted restrictions on their ability to reverse engineer by their agreement to the terms of the TOU and EULA." – Eric Eskildsen Oct 28 '21 at 17:55
  • @EricEskildsen We're specifically talking about software that has no TOU or EULA. We're talking about software protected by a copyright license. And, in any event, even if the software was protected by a TOU or EULA, gnasher729's point would still be wrong. A TOU or EULA is needed to make you give up the right to use the software precisely because in the absence of any agreements, you *would* have the right to use the software as an ordinary right of lawful possession. As you said, they lost their rights *because* they agreed to give them up. That means they would have had them otherwise. – David Schwartz Oct 28 '21 at 18:03
  • @DavidSchwartz Open-source licenses have been upheld like EULAs. Distribution channels often treat them the same way, too; for example, Visual Studio's NuGet client makes license acceptance explicit by presenting "I Accept"/"I Decline" buttons when installing OP's example of iTextSharp. – Eric Eskildsen Oct 28 '21 at 19:33
  • @EricEskildsen Do you have any US citation for the proposition that a copyright license imposes obligations on those who don 't accept it? – David Schwartz Oct 28 '21 at 19:36
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    If the user never accepted the lisence, they have already broken copyright laws by copying the software onto their systems in the first place. There is no implicit right to download software without a lisence allowing you to do so. – Vality Nov 04 '21 at 15:46
  • @DavidSchwartz Jacobsen v. Katzer (2008). The Court held that open source licenses are enforceable copyright conditions. Harvard Law Prof. Lawrence Lessig commented on the case, "In non-technical terms, the Court has held that [...] [w]hen you violate the condition, the license disappears, meaning you're simply a copyright infringer. This is the theory of the GPL and all CC licenses. Put precisely, whether or not they are also contracts, they are copyright licenses which expire if you fail to abide by the terms of the license." – Eric Eskildsen Nov 07 '21 at 16:33
  • @EricEskildsen Nobody disputes that violating the terms of a copyright license deprives you of any rights that you could only obtain from the license. But if you do not accept a copyright license, you wouldn't get any of those rights anyway, so the consequence of violating the license is nothing at all. You still have fair use, ordinary use, and first sale rights because those don't come from the license but are yours by law as a lawful owner who never agreed to any restrictions on them. – David Schwartz Nov 08 '21 at 07:02
  • @Vality Which right in 17 USC 106 do you think would be implicated by downloading a piece of software? The person who is providing you the copy is distributing the software, of course, but that's not the person downloading the software. If you were right, it would be illegal to view a web page without a license. – David Schwartz Nov 08 '21 at 07:03
  • @DavidSchwartz Firstly, as obsurd as it sounds, as far as I know in the US it is actually illegal to view a webpage without a lisence as a court has held copying the website into ram constitutes making an unauthorized copy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticketmaster,_LLC_v._RMG_Technologies,_Inc. . – Vality Nov 09 '21 at 08:43
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    @DavidSchwartz sorry that link isn't working well. Try this one. https://www.leagle.com/decision/20071603507fsupp2d109611527 still, in short that ruling was that right 1 of 17 u.s.c 106 was violated as copying the contents of a webpage into RAM for the purposes of viewing it indeed constitutes making an unauthorized copy for the purposes of copyright law. (Yes it is an incredibly stupid law but such is as it is) – Vality Nov 09 '21 at 08:54
  • (do however note this interpretation is not internationally accepted, other countries which are party to copyright treaties hold that cached copies and other procedural copies made in the process of viewing a website do not constitute making a copy, but the US does unfortunately) – Vality Nov 09 '21 at 08:59
  • @Vality In Ticketmaster LLC v. RMG Technologies, the court held that RMG Technologies implicitly agreed to the terms of use by submitting a query to Ticketmaster. So that case holds, correctly, that: 1) If you agree not to do something, you can't then do it. 2) You can agree not to do something implicitly by doing something you don't already have the legal right to do. It does not stand for the proposition that viewing a web page is copyright infringement (though it is copying) nor does it say you can agree not to do something implicitly by doing something you have the legal right to do. – David Schwartz Nov 09 '21 at 18:33
  • @DavidSchwartz "But if you do not accept a copyright license, you wouldn't get any of those rights anyway, so the consequence of violating the license is nothing at all." Not true; the consequence of violation is that "you're simply a copyright infringer," to quote Lessig again. Fair use and first sale don't matter—there *is* no sale, and unless the library is somehow being parodied by its inclusion, or used for educational purposes, fair use doesn't apply. – Eric Eskildsen Nov 26 '21 at 17:34
  • @EricEskildsen You are wrong on both points. First, the consequence of violation is not that you're a copyright infringer because that would require you to violate copyright law. A license is not copyright law. Second, first sale rights apply to anyone who lawfully possesses a lawfully made copy of a work (some exceptions not relevant here). See the text of 17 USC 109 ("the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title") and also ProCD v. Zeidenberg. – David Schwartz Nov 26 '21 at 20:35
  • @DavidSchwartz How do you interpret Jacobsen v. Katzer? – Eric Eskildsen Nov 28 '21 at 19:26
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You have to offer to supply the source and any modifications - to anyone you distribute the binary to.
Since you only distribute it to users inside your company that shouldn't be too much of a problem !

note: the AGPL is basically the GPL with the addition that you consider web users of a service based on the code to have had the software distributed to them - and so get the source.

Martin Beckett
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Sorry guys, I have to tell you are wrong.

I have had several e-mail contacts with iText this week

With AGPL, even "If you confine use of the library to within the walls of your corporation" , if you do not want to open your source code, you DO need a commercial licence.

Pierre Vivier
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  • is this merely your opinion or you can back it up somehow? – gnat Jun 29 '18 at 16:21
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    Sounds like there is a chance the iText people may have either misinterpreted the question, or may not have fully understood the AGPL when they chose it. They may want to change the license if they realize that the license doesn't mean what they thought it does. See for ref, the AGPL FAQ at http://www.affero.org/oagf.html **Q: How does this license treat commercial enterprise use over intranets and internal networks?** _A: Simply, if run internally to a commercial company, then the company isn't required to release source code back to the world._ – mindcrime Jun 29 '18 at 17:54
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    @pierre-vievier I think this is on purpose because the more user will buy a license. As always in life: do a fact checking for yourself as mindcrime indicated... – Lonzak Aug 13 '18 at 12:11