Re: Pristine source archive

> It certainly looked like you hadn't, as your interpretation (now it
> seems) relies on a certain reading of a certain phrase, which you did
> not even mention in your first two mails. Now that you've elaborated on
> your interpretation I see that you have read the license.

> BTW, if, as you seem to imply, distribution of A on the Internet at one
> site and B on a different site and telling people who ask for B that it's
> on that site, counts as "accompanying" B with A, then I don't see why the
> license has to contain the last paragraph of section 3.

If the license said that source had to accompany the binaries explicitly, I
would agree with you. It does not, however, say that source has to
"accompany" the executables. It says I have "Accompany it with a written
offer ... to give any third party ... a complete machine-readable copy of
the corresponding source code ... on a medium customarily used for
software interchange." Your interpretation of that goes beyond what it
actually says in my opinion. For the sake of argument, what is the
difference in me saying to you "get it from
http://www.dalessite.com/source" vs "get it from
http://www.upstream.org/source", as long as:

1) It's really available where I say it is.
2) AND I really didn't modify it, OR I did give you patches.

For that matter I could release binaries on an ftp site and then have a
webpage where you could request CDs of the source for $5.

Read the part about the intent of the license in the Preamble:

"Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the
freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service
if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it,
that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs;
and that you know you can do these things."

If I really was to point you at the source that _I_ got it from, it does
not inhibit you on any of these principles, right?

As far as the last paragraph goes, it's (in my opinion) to protect someone
from distributing GPL code from having to do things at the whim of some
"crazed" user. Let's say Microsoft ftps a Debian binary image from the ftp
server, or obtains it in some other way. (I'm sure that's happened.) Now
imagine they decide they want the source. So they read the README that
came with the CD that says where they can ftp it from. They come back and
say "we cancelled our Internet access and now we only have floppy drives;
if you don't send me floppies of the source (at cost of distribution),
you'll be in violation of the GPL". This clause says that Debian does NOT
have to do that; having the source on the ftp site where the binaries came
is enough.

That's different than saying that this is the only way to satisfy the
requirement, though, IMHO.

I don't advocate ANY of these approaches (aside from the simple publishing
of source code), btw. I'm just trying to understand/explain the GPL within
the context of the original proposal and the resulting question.

Later,
Dale
--
Dale E. Martin, Clifton Labs, Inc.
Senior Computer Engineer
dmartin(at)cliftonlabs(dot)com
http://www.cliftonlabs.com
pgp key available