Re: Binaries under GPL(2)

["Joe Moore" <joemoore@iegrec.org>]

Anthony DeRobertis said:
> The only time I think they would allow otherwise would be if the
> copyright holder distributed object code under the GPL. I don't know
> what they'd do then.

I'd argue (not that a court would necessarily agree) that "The Work"
described in sections 1 and 2 is the object code, so I can make and/or
distribute copies of The Work.

These copies can be unmodified object code, or modified object code if the
modifications were made directly to the (author-distributed) object code,
without compiling the "Preferred form for modification".

I'd argue that section 3 applies only if I want to distribute the result of
compiling the "source".

So, since I've never seen the "source" for the firmware files that started
this thread, I'd argue that verbatim distribution of the firmware image
(even in .o format) is permitted under the GPL.  But it still is not
suitable for the Debian, because of DFSG#2

--Joe