Linux  and Free Software :: licensing



Great, Thanks curaga!
But you can't upstream John's promise. If you make GPL binaries available to the public, be it free or for a fee, then you have to provide the source and not just refer them. Several projects were is violation of the GPL when they in fact did not themselves have the source.
I remembered reading this GPLv2 FAQ entry:
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What does “written offer valid for any third party” mean in GPLv2? Does that mean everyone in the world can get the source to any GPL'ed program no matter what?

If you choose to provide source through a written offer, then anybody who requests the source from you is entitled to receive it.

If you commercially distribute binaries not accompanied with source code, the GPL says you must provide a written offer to distribute the source code later. When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. This means that people who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code, along with the written offer.

The reason we require the offer to be valid for any third party is so that people who receive the binaries indirectly in that way can order the source code from you.
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesWrittenOfferValid

I am not sure if this applies here, I'll leave it to those who are more adept in GPL.
Well, section 3 of GPLv2 says:
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3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
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,
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,
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.)
This is partly different with that FAQ entry and confuses me even more; but to me it looks you actually could pass on the offer. Yet I'm unsure whether this is uncommercial distribution; you do donate the cds for free, but for the auctioners it's commercial..
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to me it looks you actually could pass on the offer.


Does look that way.  That might explain why I thought I read somewhere that it is sufficient to provide a link to the sources if redistributing GPL'd binaries non-commercially - that might be so if the link in fact constitues an "offer".

But as I recall from an older thread it was argued this was not the case.

It does seem like bollocks for everybody to go around distributing the same unchanged sources for unchanged binaries.
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