Re: Legality of .DEBS in Medialinux.
Marco Ghirlanda <marco.ghirlanda@opensourcelab.it> writes:
>>
>>
>>Knoppix should be distributing the source from the same location that
>>you would get the CD, so its still compliant with the GPL.
>>
> Really I couldn't find the sources of Knoppix anywhere.
<http://developer.linuxtag.net/knoppix/> looks like a good place to
start. That's a result of googling for "Knoppix source" and taking
the first hit. There's a link to that from the index file of a
Knoppix CD.
> The fact seems that it is necessary for correct application of the
> GPL, but it is not respected so much indeed. So I have to publish for
> every *.deb a *-src.deb?
Well, you have to publish the source in some convenient format -- a
bunch of tar.gz's is fine, for example.
>>The real issue comes when you are handing out or selling binary only
>>cds. Those need to have a written offer for source valid for three
>>years (for the GPL)
>>
> I would point to the Debian Source, is it right?
No. You need to provide it yourself -- you can't point to something
which might fold up and vanish tomorrow. It has to be *you* providing
the source, not you pointing to somebody who does. There's an
exception to this, but it only kicks in if you're doing non-commercial
distribution AND you received a written offer for source yourself.
Debian provides no such offers.
>>, or the source needs to be available at the same
>>time for no extra cost.
>>
> This I don't understand. Seems like I have to create an ISO with only
> the sources.
> Is there a program who download the sources for a given list of packages?
'xargs -ifoo apt-get source -d foo' -- the source debs are all sitting
in one directory, it's not hard to programatically assemble their
names and fetch the ones you want..
> Not to seem un-ethical, but if MrKnoppix doesn't do this, why should I
> do it (I mean publish the sources cd) that I am a much smaller and
> derivative project?
Klaus Knopper does do this. He's actually put a lot of thought into
making sure that he, and those who redistribute his CDs, have a good
way of complying with the GPL. Check the archives here, it was
discussed this past summer.
Or, check out The Man Himself at
<http://mailman.linuxtag.org/pipermail/debian-knoppix/2003-April/002425.html>.
As I said, Knopper's done his homework to help with this sort of situation.
> Anyway I'm still considering this possibility, cause Medialinux was
> born as a project for the students of our school, but it looks like it
> has many possibilities more...
> I'm just very sorry I have to tell to my users that they will not use
> this to look at their payed DVD, 'cause they have to pay for the
> software again.
I wish someone here could help you with that, but the way copyright
and patent laws are written right now, it would be very risky to do so.
> And that I need the double of the space on the server (that in our
> case is hosting us for free, in pure Linux tradition) to put also the
> sources.
Hardly. Source is typically much smaller than the binary.
> Thanks so much, Marco Ghirlanda
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