[throwaway934876]

The authors can re-license right, even for one (paying) customer? They could also pay for the promise not to sue? IANAL.

[vlovich123]

Only if the project owns the copyright or otherwise has been granted such powers in their contribution agreement. Otherwise, no. They’d have to get approval from every autho/rewrite the code they don’t have a license for to provide a copy that isn’t GPL.

[daptaq]

I remember reading that it should be able for users to sue instead of the author, if they cannot ccess the source of GPL'ed software.

[pabs3]

The Software Freedom Conservancy are trying to set that precedent right now in their lawsuit against Vizio for GPL violations in their televisions:

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

[daptaq]

Yes, that was what I had in mind. Thank you!

[vlovich123]

I’m fact it’s only the users who have standing to request the source. The author’s have standing to sue for copyright infringement.

[colejohnson66]

Not at all true. It's copyright infringement if you're not following a license contract, of which the GPL is.

[vlovich123]

The GPL contract only says you have to distribute source to the users you give binaries to. The only people who can ask for said source are the people receiving those binaries and the only people who have standing to sue when that doesn’t happen is the copyright owners.

That’s why you can use GPL software in your private CI system and not need to give anyone the source code.

[pabs3]

Hopefully the SFC lawsuit against Vizio will set the precedent that any recipient of GPL binaries has standing to sue:

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

[colejohnson66]

I see I misread your comment. My apologies.