Re: Possible GPL violation?

[Robert Dewar]

<<Previous attention by the FSF police notwithstanding, XYZZY Inc. is not
obliged to give you the source if it didn't already give you binaries.  I.e.
the GPL does not *require* you to distribute to anyone.  Just that when you
do, it specifies how and how much.
>>

This is incorrect. If you opt for the written offer to supply the sources,
as this company apparently has, then the following applies from the GPL:

    b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
    years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
    cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
    machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
    distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
    customarily used for software interchange; or,

Note the "any third party" here. 

Please read the GPL before making claims about it. The reason incidentally
for the "any third party" here is to make it reasonably easy to do further
distributions. This means you can send the objects to someone along with
a copy of the original written offer rather than forcing you to excercise
the written offer before redistributing.

The GPL is quite clear about this:

    c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
    to distribute corresponding source code.  (This alternative is
    allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
    received the program in object code or executable form with such
    an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)


Now if you take alternative a)

    a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
    source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
    1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

Then indeed you have no obligation to third parties.