[Kudos]

Unless they have GPL dependencies I'm not sure they have to release source for a binary release. If I write some code and grant you a license to use it under the GPL, I would have thought I still am the copyright holder and don't need any kind of license to do whatever I want with it.

[Sophira]

My understanding is that the GPL specifies that any further redistribution of binary code (by the licensee) has to come with an offer to be able to receive the source code, which they can then modify and redistribute under the original license. If the original licensor doesn't actually allow access to the source code, there's no way for that to happen and I'd argue that the licensor is being unreasonable by asking licensees to comply with something they have no chance of being able to comply with. (Short of decompilation, which wouldn't yield the original source code.)

I have no idea of the legal implications of all this (I'm not a lawyer), but there has to be some kind of legal thing that prevents the original licensor from being unreasonable in this way, I'd hope?

[Xylakant]

The license does not bind the original copyright owner, who can do anything with the code - fee example relicense and distribute under another license.

The license only binds the licensee that received the code under the respective license.

Things get more complicated if there are external contributors that may have contributed under specific legal arrangements, but in the simple case there’s no legal way to force the original copyright owner to publish sources.

[Sophira]

I realise the license doesn't bind the original copyright owner. That's not what I was arguing.

I'm saying that if the original licensor (ie. the copyright owner) offers software that they fully own to people under the terms of the GPL, they're binding the licensee (ie. the entity receiving the software) such that further redistribution of the binary that the licensee received has to come with an offer to receive the source code - which is something that the licensee cannot offer if they don't have access to the source code themselves.

I'm arguing that such a situation (ie. the original copyright owner not offering source code, but at the same time saying that the people receiving the software have to offer the source code if they want to redistribute the binary) is unreasonable to the point where it feels like there may be some legal action that could be taken, as at that point the license is asking people to do things that they literally cannot do.

[fragmede]

The original copyright owner still has the right to distribute the software they wrote and have the original copyright for under a proprietary license.

[esperent]

> The license does not bind the original copyright owner, who can do anything with the code

For any small to medium sized projects with zero external contributors, it's highly unlikely that anyone would pursue legal action so the person who owns the project does de facto have this right whether or not it's legal according to the license.

> Things get more complicated if there are external contributors

I don't think this is complicated - unless there's a contributor agreement that people have signed that says otherwise, people have copyright on the code they have contributed so the original creator doesn't have a right to relicense their code.

However, again it comes down to whether anyone would bring a legal fight and the answer is almost certainly no. Forking the code is much more likely at that point.

[digitalPhonix]

>> The license does not bind the original copyright owner, who can do anything with the code

> whether or not it's legal according to the license

The original author is not bound by any licence. Only the licensees are. The licence they chose to use by definition cannot bind them; they are issuing the licence.

(They are obviously bound by the licences of anything that they use, but that’s not what the person you’re replying to is talking about)

[esperent]

> The original author is not bound by any licence.

Yes, but this is only true if nobody else ever contributes to the software. Once the project has multiple contributors, each of these people are copyright holders of whatever they contributed, and they are the licensor for their parts of the code. So the original author is also held to the terms of the license for all contributed code.