Can we use a GPL 2 product for the commercial purpose?

Question

Note: There are many questions answers related to the licensing. But I think my requirement is specific, so asking a separate question.

We are considering to fork a GPL 2 project and use it for commercial purposes. This project has not been updated in past 2 years, but it's a great solution for our requirement. Ofcourse we will be enhancing it in future, but for now we would like to use it as it is. We are not direclty selling the product, but we will offer it as a service(with monthly subscription). Can we do this?

What happens to the license and copyright? Since we are not distributing the product, the end users may not get to know these information.

Answer 1

Yes, GPLv2 code can be used in the manner you describe. That in fact is one of the motivations for the AGPL and GPLv3. The modified code must, of course, never be given to anyone outside the organization or the obligation to make the source code available will be incurred.

There will probably be a negative reaction from the open-source community, as this use is considered technically legal but just not cricket (it's viewed at best as profiting from someone else's work without compensating them for it in any form such as by contributing new work back for others to benefit from). Possibilities for avoiding this include contributing the changes back (if they aren't a core part of the business) or contacting the project to see if the copyright holders would license the project's code for internal use in return for financial or other support (even if this project isn't under active development, hardware and other resources may be needed for other projects the copyright holders are working on).

The client side needs to be examined also. If there are any modifications made to the client code, the source code for them will need to be made available since the client will be distributed to customers. If there isn't a client (eg. a web application) or if an unmodified client is used, there won't be a legal issue.

Answer 2

Read the GPL 2 license carefully, and be prepared to share the code along with all your changes with others.

If you hand over the software to anybody outside your company without giving them the source code, then you have the obligation to provide the source code to anybody in the world who asks you for it.

Answer 3

Since you are not distributing the software to anyone outside your organization, there is no requirement to make the source code for your changes available. The applies for GPLv1, GPLv2 and GPLv3.

Also, the GPL places no restrictions on the purpose you use the software for. You can use it for commercial purposes ... provided that the way you use it does not conflict with the specific requirements for making source code available.

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Now Affero Public License does require you to make your changes available if you use the product in a publicly available service. However Affero is NOT GPL.