Inheriting or disinheriting GPL license conditions

[Joseph Heenan]

Hi Greg,

I've not researched sugarCRM at all; I've a few questions you quite 
probably know the answers to:

Greg Soper wrote:

[snip]
> However, the vendor also distributes an "on-premise" or physical version 
> of the modified application. This on-premise version is covered by a 
> proprietary license that forbids distribution of any vendor written 
> code, but allows distribution of the original SugarCRM written code.

There's presumably no argument that this is distribution.

I'd imagine any points that are debatable will be how much of the 
vendor's written code is a "derived work" of the GPL code.

It's not too clear from your email; do you believe that the vendor has 
modified some of the files provided by SugarCRM? Are they allowing their 
customers to distribute *those* modified files under the GPL, or only 
the original versions without the vendors changes?

Are some of the vendor's modification viewed as "plugins"? Is there a 
defined plugin interface? It is clear if you can license sugarCRM under 
any license you want? Do any of their 'plugins' incorporate GPL licensed 
code?

Do you (or your company) own the copyright to some of the GPL code in 
sugarCRM? (Your sig suggests you may be a contributor.)

Did the vendor contribute any of the code in the open source GPL version 
of sugarCRM?

Joseph