Re: Outdated GNU config (config.{sub,guess}) and autotools-dev
On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 09:37:28AM +0100, Nick Phillips wrote:
> I think you are making the fairly common mistake of assuming that the
> parts of the GPL which apply *iff* you copy and distribute "the program"
> always apply, and require you to make it available.
Sorry, I didn't say this explicitely, because since the beginning of the
thread we talk about Debian packages which absolutely are distributed by us
and many, many other parties (commercially and not commercially).
> > All this confusion and attempts to duck the issue make me more and more
> > confident we should completely avoid changing the source at binary build
> > time.
>
> You're probably right; although the GPL makes no mention of which version
> of the source code you are supposed to make available - if you have
> distributed 1001 different versions, are you required to keep each version's
> source snapshot available for 3 years, or can you just provide them with the
> latest version?
The GPL doesn't talk about versions at all! If you distribute a ibnary, you
must distribute the source used to produce that binary. Versions have
absolutely nothing to do with it.
> The "latest version" idea would probably enable people to dodge the GPL
> by removing most of the features from version 1 in version 1.1 and then
> distributing only the version 1.1 source.
I don't want to dodge the GPL.
> The answer to that question will then provide more insight into the best
> way to handle the original question - I expect that the answer will be that
> we will have to be able to provide source snapshots for any binary that
> has shipped in the past 3 years,
There is still the chance that RMS will consider the Debian archive as the
"same" "designated place" of distribution (if there are sufficient pointers
in the binary), so maybe we the three years rule doesn't apply to us.
(According to 3. a) of the GPL).
> Then I would guess that the autoconf bits that started this would still
> be a grey area. My guess, for what it's worth (and I'm not an autoconf whizz,
> nor highly experienced in Debian packaging, nor ...), is that it would
> make sense for the relevant bits to be:
> 1) provided in the source package (but not in the location from which they
> would be used) by the maintainer in a form which works at the time;
> 2) copied into the package from the newer of the system's copies and the
> maintainer-provided copies at build-time, *unless* the maintainer has
> somehow specified that this should not happen.
This would be fine.
Thanks,
Marcus
--
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de
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