Re: Knoppix and GPL

[Klaus Knopper <legal@knopper.net>]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 07:40:58PM -0500, Darryl Palmer wrote:
> 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.)
> 
> Now maybe my interpretation is bad but it states that you only have to
> do one of the following 3 clauses.  Clause C does not require that the
> source be offered for 3 years and since Knoppix is a noncommercial
> distribution

I have to disagree with the last part. The fact that there is a free
(beer, and freedom) download version of Knoppix does not mean that there
are no "commercial" versions around, for example in magazines or books,
or CDs that are sold by third parties. With GPL software, you have no
control over who distributes your stuff commercially or
non-commercially.  Therefore the (partly discriminating, IMHO) paragraph
c) is not sufficient in all cases. Therefore, the written offer, as
silly as it may sound in the digital age where the sources of Debian
packages can be obtained with a simple apt-get source command, is
included.

For those who would prefer paragraph a), please consider the fact that
a CD that consists 3/4 of only source code may not be a very popular
thing for the majority of potential users, and also CD-magazines and
FTP mirrors try to avoid stuff that is not likely to EVER being used
or downloaded.

Regards
-Klaus Knopper