On Wed, Jan 02, 2002 at 04:02:51PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > Yep, that's the GPL. Of course, the person you give the binary to can > say "you don't need to give me the source", and then you're off the > hook. Er, I don't think that's permitted, either. If I don't give someone the source code simultaneously with the binary, fulfilling 3a) of the GPL, then all I have to fall back on is 3b), the written offer, or 3c) where I can only transfer -- not originate -- the written offer I myself received under 3b). It's easy for me to see why the GPL doesn't let me "get off the hook" in that scenario. If it didn't, then I as Big Evil Proprietary Software Company would just sell binary-only CD's in exchange for cash plus a signed declaration that "I hereby forfeit my right to recieve source code from you". Because I made them the "offer" under this putative version of 3a), I wouldn't also have to comply with 3b) or 3c). Thus, I'd be able to lock up the sources to my (or someone else's) GPL'ed program. > > Sure, *programmers* would far rather swap source code than binaries > > under most circumstances, but people shuttle binaries around by > > themselves all the time. Sometimes just to see if something is broken. > > ("My /bin/ls doesn't work, can you send me yours?") > > > > This practice is really forbidden by the GPL? > > I think it's quite under the radar screen and not worth worrying > about. Henning said this as well, but I guess it bothers me a little bit that the GPL prohibits this sort of sane, reasonable, and harmless activity. While I may trust the FSF not to sue me for helping a friend out by scp'ing various GNU/Linux binaries to him upon request, to help troubleshoot his own GNU/Linux system, it bothers me that such an activity is considered infringing at all. RMS, can this subject be explored in more depth for GPL v3? I realize that any effort to craft a loophole to permit the above scenario will see extremely aggressive "legal reading" and exploitation attempts by propriteers, and Henning Makholm came up with a very legitimate scenario of abuse, but I'd like to think that it is possible to make the behvaior described non-infringing without permitting other behaviors that are substantively damaging to Free Software. -- G. Branden Robinson | "To be is to do" -- Plato Debian GNU/Linux | "To do is to be" -- Aristotle branden@debian.org | "Do be do be do" -- Sinatra http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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