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On Sun, 07 Sep 2003 02:57 am, Dave Shawley wrote:
> I got a question about about distributing Ethereal as an internal tool
> for our field support guys. We have a number of proprietary protocols
> that I have written dissectors for. I have been using it for my own
> debugging purposes since I am responsible for writing the protocol
> servers. Anyway, if we wanted to distribute Ethereal internally what
> are the distribution requirements since it is GPLed?
My interpretation of the requirements are that if you only give it to
"employees", then you are OK with a binary only distribution. You don't need
to provide anything else (including not needing to provide the source code
that you derived from).
If the field support guys are contractors, they can get the code.
If the field support guys give the binaries to anyone, they can demand the
source code used to build the binaries.
In all cases, you have to attach the GPL (file called COPYING).
> I guess that my real question is: do we have to distribute the source
> for our dissectors or is it legal to release binary form dissectors if
> we provide links to the source for Ethereal?
As noted above, you don't need to provide Ethereal source (original or
modified) if the distribution is only internal.
If it is passed on, the original source won't do: it has to be the source for
whatever you are distributing.
> Now for the real story... my manager really wants to distribute Ethereal
> since it is a *very* useful debugging tool. She thinks that since it is
> an internal distribution, we shouldn't have to divulge the source for
> our dissectors. I'm pretty sure we have to distribute the source but I
> figured that I would ask anyway.
If it is purely internal, she's right. [Plus, the boss is always right :]
> Now if we do have to distribute the source, is it legal to to dist the
> source on the same disk? I think that our lawyers will go for this one
> since the disks are only available to our internal FEs. Anyway, I need
> some response on this from the legalease on this list.
It is probably cleaner to put the source code on the same disk. That way, if
it doesn't leak, you have no problems, and if it does leak, well you might
have problems with GPL negating some of your patents on those protocols, but
at least you aren't in direct copyright infringement.
Plus, from a technical level, the field engineers can use the sourcecode to
fix the tool if they find a problem with it
Note that I'm not a lawyer, and even if I was, opinions vary.
On a purely technical issue: is there any chance of publically releasing some
of the dissectors? That way, they might get updated when Ethereal changes,
and maybe your customers can support their own stuff. How much more TCO
improvement can the boss ask for! :)
Brad
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