Does the GPL allow anyone to obtain GPL software without paying for it?

Question

I've spotted a nice WordPress (GPL) theme for sale.

I know somebody who bought it.

I have 2 questions:

1. Has the company selling it the obligation to send the source code to whoever (customers or not) ask it?
2. Can the person who bought it give me a copy for free which I could use in production?

Answer 1

1. The company selling it has no obligation to distribute source to anyone except people to whom they have given binaries. So no, they don't have to give you anything.

2. Someone who has purchased GPL software does have the right to request source and subsequently redistribute that source to anyone under the terms of the GPL. If you can find a customer willing to give you a copy, that will work.

Answer 2

1. FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES, under the GPL, if the company does not distribute the source code WITH the binary, then the company is obligated to give the source code to anyone who requests it.

   Scenario: AcmeSoft distributes a widget binary under the GPL selling it to Betty, accompanying it with a promise to deliver the source on request. Betty redistributes a copy of the binary to Chuck. Chuck gives a copy of the binary to Dave. Dave passed it along to Eddie. Eddie gives it to Freddy. Freddy asks Eddy for the source code. Eddie calls Dave. Dave says "Talk to Chuck." Chuck says "Talk to Betty, I got it from her." Betty tell Chuck to "Call AcmeSoft." The message gets back down to Freddy, and Freddy calls AcmeSoft.

   At this point, under the GPL, AcmeSoft is absolutely obliged to give Freddy the source code.

   It does not matter how long the Betty-Chuck-Dave-...-Iola-...-Tomas chain might be. At each step in the chain, distributing the binary obligates the distributor to make the source available, as provided in the GPL, and confers upon the recipient the right to receive the source code from the appropriate person higher up the chain.

   In theory, the company could demand that Freddy prove that he in fact has a copy of the binary. In fact, a company that did that would get a very lousy reputation, very quickly.

   The company MAY demand a token payment, to cover their actual reasonable duplication and distribution costs. Back in the Dark Ages of Big Iron, that covered the cost of a magnetic tape, the labor of writing the tape, and the cost of postage. Today, in the day of the World Wide Web, that cost is negligible, if not actually too small to bother measuring.

   Now, IF AcmeSoft had instead distributed the source WITH the binary, they would be allowed to tell Freddy that they had done so, and that he should have received the source with the binary he received from whoever gave it to him.

2. Yes, absolutely. The GPL specifically forbids the licensor or any subsequent distributor from imposing additional restrictions on subsequent down-the-chain distribution of binary OR SOURCE.

   Stallman et al actually went to a great deal of trouble to rig the GPL so it would work this way, so that nobody would be able to "take the code private", the way someone allegedly did with an early version of EMACS. That episode left a VERY bad taste in Stallman's mouth, after he was forced by the threat of litigation to rewrite his baby.