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Comment by jakejake | Hacker News Reader

This is a crappy move on Comcast's part, but as far as GPL they most likely are not in violation. You can use GPL code in a commercial product as long as you are not distributing it.

If they ever choose to sell or distribute their "content injection system" though, they would have to release it under the GPL or else negotiate another license from the copyright owner.

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How are they not distributing it if they send this JavaScript to each user notified? Of course it's JavaScript so maybe that counts as distributing the source...

I think the FSF would consider this a distribution and require the backend to be released under the GPL.

https://www.drupal.org/node/173294

Er, actually it may be more complicated than that. You'll have to read the discussion.

Backend? IANAL, but using a frontend JS library under the GPL doesn't have implications for your backend per-se; they can be entirely separate works.

You could argue about their frontend, though.

The AGPL was designed to fix this "loophole": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License

AGPL fixes this problem for backend code running on the web server, which is technically not distributed, so GPLv2 does not apply. For Javascript code, the code is distributed to the web browser, so even GPLv2 applies.

Isn't the whole point of this post that they are distributing it?

You can use and distribute GPL code in a commercial product too.

There's nothing in the GPL that says you can't sell/commercialise the software. The product just has to be GPL licenced too.

Exactly. Nothing prevents me from selling 100$ ubuntu copies.

This is certainly distribution.

If the `checkBrowser` function uses GPL'd code, then anything that calls `checkBrowser` in turn must be licensed under the GPL.

But that doesn't mean that this Comcast code _is_ licensed under the GPL. That means that the copyright owner (brainjar) can take action against Comcast, and tell them to either stop using their code, or change the license.

They'd just stop using the code.

If Brainjar had licensed this code AGPL then Comcast would have to release their code. But since it's GPL 2 then they have no legal right to require Comcast or anybody else to stop using their code. That's one of the great things about GPL (or horrible things, depending on your intention)

Read up on your licenses folks, make sure your code is used the way you intend.

This code is served to the client; the AGPL would not provide any benefit here.

Please see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html

Yea, this is like what tivo did, it's allowable under the GPLv2

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