HACKER Q&A
📣 lucozade

Who can access GPL'd source code


I was following the thread regarding the fallout from the Zen fork of Zig [0]. A number of comments brought up the licensing and how the situation would have been different if Zig was under GPL rather than MIT license.

This got me wondering. Say I have a GPL project and someone forks it. They then distribute their software to paying customers. Does the GPL only require that those paying customers have access to the source? Is there any requirement that the original author also must have access (assuming they aren't a paying customer of the fork)?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24481142

  👤 mytailorisrich Accepted Answer ✓
If you distribute the software to customers in "non-source form", i.e. a compiled executable or library, then you must also make the source code available to those customers.

I don't believe that there is a requirement that you must publish the source code beyond that. Of course the nature of the GPL is that anyone who receives the source code is then free to re-publish it however they please.

👤 fsflover
IANAL, but if the original author has all the rights, they must not obey GPL.
👤 theandrewbailey
One of the GPL's terms is that all changes must be made available, even to those who do not pay for the changes. All derivative works (like code forks) must be licensed under the same or equivalent license.