Re: [PROPOSAL] Full text of GPL must be included
At 09:35 pm -0800 on November 29, 2000, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> [...] the GPL requires that you give a copy of the GPL to anyone you
> give the binary for a program to.
Interestingly, this appears to only apply to some GPLed binaries, not
all (see example below). And of course it is only necessary if you wish
to have the rights granted in section 1, i.e. be able to distribute
"verbatim copies of the Program's source code" (a right that Debian
obviously needs).
Using Jason Gunthorpe's example from debian-project:
jgg> If the same RedHat user sshs to my machine and copies /usr/bin/ls
jgg> then they also won't get a copy of the GPL and I would be in
jgg> violation?
bfk@adsl-63-195-123-115:~$ strings /bin/ls | egrep -i gpl\|license
bfk@adsl-63-195-123-115:~$
/bin/ls does not contain a "notice placed by the copyright holder
saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public
License." Therefore it is not a "Program" as defined by section 0, it
is merely a "work based on a Program" (again see section 0). Section
1 requires giving "any other recipients of the Program a copy of this
License along with the Program" if one wishes to also have the right to
distribute the source code to the Program. Section 1 does not place any
similar restrictions on distributing a "work based on the Program", like
/bin/ls. Therefore one can distribute /bin/ls without being required to
give recipients of /bin/ls a copy of the GPL. Yay. :-)
I may be reading the GPL too literally. :-)
brian
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