Re: Summary : ocaml, QPL and the DFSG.

[David Nusinow <david_nusinow@verizon.net>]

On Fri, Jul 23, 2004 at 04:17:35PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> I have recently come to believe that the GPL's requirement for source
> distribution is fundamentally different, and is in fact not truly a
> "compelled distribution" in the fashion of the QPL.  Please rip my thought
> process to shreds if it's bogus.
> 
> The core of my argument is that the binary and source forms of a work are in
> fact different forms of the same copyrighted work (excluding, for the
> purposes of thought-experiment, the linking issue).  Since both forms are
> the same copyrighted work, there is no real separation of entities to
> distribute -- the GPL is just making that nice and clear.  Consider, as an
> analogous situation, that some books come with CDs of the text of the book
> and (sometimes) further examples and other material.  The printed text and
> the book-on-CD are the same copyrighted work.  If you sell the book to
> someone else, you're supposed to give them the CD as well.  Certainly it's
> frowned upon to sell the book to one person and the CD to someone else.
> 
> The GPL is just source+binary in the same way as book+CD.  Some licences
> give you the option of distributing in one form or the other, but the GPL
> reserves this right to some degree -- it says that you at least have to give
> the recipient the option -- it's like asking the person you sell your book
> to if they want the CD, and if they decline, you throw it in the bin.
> 
> The argument seems fairly OK to me.  Any comments?

Very interesting argument. My only issue with it is that you own the textbook
so you should have the right to sell it as you will. AFAIK, you haven't
licensed the textbook and CD when purchasing the thing, so you can sell it in
pieces if you like, the same way you could break a CD in half and sell the
halves if you really wanted to do so (and could find some genius to pay you for
the privledge.) This seems like a critical difference. Maybe a different
analogy is necessary, because I like the idea very much.

 - David Nusinow