Re: APSL 2.0

[Stephen Ryan <taketwoaspirin@deepthought.dartmouth.edu>]

On Thu, 2003-08-07 at 10:22, MJ Ray wrote:
> Stephen Ryan <taketwoaspirin@deepthought.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> > the whole installation was under such a license.  I'm now liable to
> > distribute the source code for an entire operating system to every
> > person who manages to obtain a web page from me.
> 
> How does this differ from your current obligation to either provide
> the source or equivalent offer to that which you obtained the source?
> Or is your server a 0-user affair?  So why wouldn't the offer clause
> work for you?

Has Debian made such an offer?  I can only pass along such an offer if I
received one in the first place.  To my knowledge, Debian has made no
such offer on any code.  It also does not apply if I make any commercial
use of my server (which I do, to the tune of a couple hundred dollars
per year).  

The difference is that I don't currently run a debian mirror on it, and
I don't have to, either.  The difference is that I currently have to get
into the distribution business only if I want to be in the distribution
business, whereas such licenses obligate every person who has a computer
running such code to be in the distribution business (I'm phrasing this
carefully so as to avoid any difficulty over the definition of a "user"
here).

Of what use is "Free" software if nobody is willing to run it?