However, you might reflect a moment that ‘distributing copies of a work’ is one of the few enumerated exclusive rights of a copyright holder. You better believe this legal term of art has an established meaning, and that your redifinition doesn’t match it. Note that your redefinition is close to the ‘public performance’ or ‘public display’ rights that, unfortunately, do not apply to software (at least currently).

See here:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html

The GPL is *not* a contract, it is a license. I don’t know why I have to keep repeating this. If your lawyer is telling you that the GPL is a contract, you seriously need to get a lawyer that has more experience in this area. Here is an article that explains this better than I could:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20031214210634851

I’d be very interested to know if the FSF has specifically approved the text of your ‘clarification’, or if what you got was some more general approval-in-principal. Given the problems I noted with the specific text you are using, I’d be very surprised if it passed a critique by them.

I have no axe to grind, but we do seem to be talking at cross purposes. If I can’t convince you of simple facts such as that the GPL is not a license, and the distribution is an established legal term of art, I guess there isn’t much left to talk about.

The GPL is a contract and therefore terms must be defined. I have offered to discuss this on the phone and even conference in an experienced software license attorney to help everyone come to a conclusion. My offer stands.

In any event, our position is not out of sorts with the “framers” intent for the license. They approve of our interpretation and feel that our clarification of terms does not ‘change’ the the text of the license. That is the requirement of the license.

Perhaps there is something else that is really going on here. For some reason you seem to have an axe to grind.

It is *that* that is being fixed in GPLv3 (ie. bringing the practical effects of the GPL more in line with their desired result), not any lack of clarity or of definition.

IANAL, and TINLA, but how much simpler do I need to make this?

a) determine a definition for distribution ~ something a court would have to hear arguments to decide.
b) determine intent of the license author and/or the intent of the author of the code in question. The authors of the license admit the ambiguity.

So instead of relying on a 63 year old judge in Mississippi who doesn’t have a cell phone, much less a computer decide the fate of our little program, we decided to clarify our intent. Just a little note before the license indicating ~ “hey we know there is confusion about the meaning of distribution, we think it means this, do if you use our software you should be willing to follow the license understanding our intent.

The notice requirement I referred to is that you were effectively saying ‘you must tell us that you have made a modified version’ by requiring an upload to your SVN server.

I am unsure what would be the best way compatible with the GPL to accomplish the effect you want. You might consider asking the FSF, or asking on the OSI’s license-discuss mailing list. Perhaps you can use the language fropm the GPLv3 draft in your clarification.

BTW, appealing to the authority of your lawyers (who have, at least in this matter, appaently served you rather poorly) will get you nowhere.

Your clarification still has problems of clarity, since it talks about ‘hosting the source code’, not ‘making the application functionality available over a network’, or some similar phrase. I would resist the urge to invent your own terminology. Borrow something that has already withstood peer review.

As for calling you, I’ll stress again that IANAL, and TINLA, so I don’t think I’d be able to help much beyond giving this sort of public critique.

“The GNU General Public License does an excellent job of protecting freedoms for users and developers, but there are questions about the applicablity of the license for software that is run over a network.”

Our lawyers think a simple clarification provided in the notice section before the license can accomplish the same result. I am reluctant to adopt the Affero license, but we will consider it over the next few days. Again, thanks…

Now on to point #2. I think this is just a mistake.  I have modified the language to clarify that we simply want the modified code released (not necessarily to our SVN).
Your forth point (marked 3) indicates that notice is required. We have not made any sort of notice requirement. What do you refer to?

Finally, give me a call to discuss, I am sure you can help us get this right. My number is 214.550.2003. Thanks for the comment and the thoughts.