Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL
luther@debian.org writes:
>>>>> The GPL discriminates against people on
>>>>> desert islands who have a binary CD but not a source one.
>>>>
>>>>I must have missed that one. How?
>>>
>>> Because they can't give any of the contents to their washed-up
>>> companion.
>>
>>That person has either deleted his copies of the source or failed to
>>ask for them; either way, it's his own fault. Alternately, somebody
>>upstream of him has violated the copyright by not obeying the
>>license.
>
> Well, he may have that written offer to get source copies for three year,
> don't he ?
The guy on the desert island could redistribute the object code and
the three-year-source-code notice noncommercially under GPL 3(c), as
long as he got it in binary format. I am not sure how that meshes
with the common interpretation that offering the source and binary
side-by-side -- as distributions do -- but I would hope that someone
stranded on a desert island with a Debian install CD could set up the
island's Beowulf cluster without infringing the GPL. (Toungue firmly
in cheek, but you get the idea.)
> And i have some doubt that if he failed to ask for them (or you where a little
> silent on the proposing of them as we often do at shows and such), that
> changes anything to the issue. You should have given them to him anyway, as
> is your obligation under the GPL.
Where, specifically, is the obligation to do this? If I gave a binary
CD to someone with the written promise to give them source code, am I
resonsible for knowing whether they will be shipwrecked six months
later and giving him source code in advance of the wreck? I am not
sure what specific obligation you mean.
Michael Poole
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