Is hosting a software as a SaaS offering considered as distribution under GPL / LGPL open source licenses?
This was selected as Best Answer Anand – I believe that SaaS hosting is *not intended* to be considered distribution. To start, please note the following from A Quick Guide to GPLv3 (first link below): <<<<< GPLv2 talks about "distribution" a lot—when you share the program with someone else, you're distributing it. The license never says what distribution is, because the term was borrowed from United States copyright law. We expected that judges would look there for the definition. However, we later found out that copyright laws in other countries use the same word, but give it different meanings. Because of this, a judge in such a country might analyze GPLv2 differently than a judge in the United States. GPLv3 uses a new term, "convey," and provides a definition for that term. "Convey" has the same meaning we intended for "distribute," but now that this is explained directly in the license, it should be easy for people everywhere to understand what we meant. There are other minor chan
