Re: GNU FDL 1.2 draft comment summary posted, and RFD

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Jeff Licquia <licquia@debian.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 2002-06-17 at 15:21, Walter Landry wrote:
> > The problem is not that the kids can't get the source, it is that the
> > Peace Corps volunteer can't give them paper copies.  The volunteer
> > can't satisfy all of the conditions on distribution.
> 
> I traced this thread back to my original proposal, and verified that it
> did, indeed, require only one of three possibilities:
> 
>  - give source now
> 
>  - offer to provide source if asked for the cost of distribution
> 
>  - attach a statement that describes how to get the source on their own
> free of charge.
> 
> If the Peace Corps volunteer handwrites the URL for the source on the
> back of each of the paper copies, then (s)he has fulfilled the license. 
> As an added bonus, the Ghanians don't have to do anything to fulfill the
> distribution requirements themselves when they pass the document on.

This is just like telling someone in the US that they can have the
source for free as long as they join a $50,000/year free software
club.  So I guess my question is, is it ok to tell people that they
can get the source by joining a $50,000/year software club?  If not,
why not?  After all, the cost of the club is an incidental expense,
much like internet access.  The club might also provide all of the
latest ISO's of all of the linux distributions, as well as an email
account and web storage.

> > All that I was suggesting was to change "no charge" to "a charge no
> > more than the cost of physically performing source distribution" and
> > to keep in the non-commercial distribution restriction.  The kids in
> > Ghana still won't get the source, but at least they can get paper
> > copies.
> 
> As I mentioned above, we already provide that option.
> 
> And why should the source distributor be non-commercial?  For example,
> someone could make a profit as an outsourcing provider of source
> distribution to fulfill the GPL's requirements; that would be
> commercial, and could even be quite profitable.  As long as Joe User
> doesn't have to pay more than the normal distribution costs, what
> difference does it make if the company makes a profit some other way?

This exemption is only meant to apply to small scale, informal
sharing.  Commercial distributors can just make the source available
for the cost of media and shipping (just like Cheapbytes does).

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org