Re: Distributing GPL Software as binary ISO
On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 01:34:34PM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 08:04:03PM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote:
> > I'm asking what A and B should do to bring themselves into
> > compliance. I don't want to sue or attack entities. I would like to
> > document the required behaviour somewhere, though, so entities know
> > what their obligation is if they are repackaging and redistributing
> > the Debian system.
>
> Once A or B has distributed GPLed binaries in this manner without the
> source, the offense is there, and they are vulnerable to a lawsuit
> because of the license violation. C.f. the widely-publicized MySQL
> court case. Assuming all parties are acting in good faith, which has
> tended to be the case in the Free Software community, it is probably
> sufficient if A and B take steps to ensure that all further distribution
> of binaries complies with the GPL. If A or B knows how to reach some or
> all of those they distributed binaries to commercially, as an additional
> show of good faith they might send a copy of the sources to these
> recipients as the GPL originally required them to do.
Also remember that once someone has violated the GPL, they are
no longer licensed and do _not_ have the freedoms granted by the GPL.
Thus, many companies like to settle in a mutually acceptable agreement.
Simon
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