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Re: web hosting providers' modified .debs



Ben Finney wrote:
> The answer depends on whether Dreamhost are, under the relevant
> jurisdiction, distributing the modified work to you. It could be
> argued that they are not: they are merely using the modified work, and
> allowing you to access a machine they own; thus, the modified work is
> not distributed to you, so no obligation is triggered to give you
> access to the corresponding source.

This is actually a very intriguing question. If I have a shell account
on someone's computer, and I can copy a binary that resides somewhere
in /bin (or wherever), is the work being distributed to me?

toad:~> ls -l /bin/ls
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  29624 Jan 15 04:30 /bin/ls*
toad:~> cp /bin/ls myls
toad:~> 

Can I now demand the source to /bin/ls from the administrators of 'toad'?

Probably it's more in the "making available" category of copyright
infringement.

Arnoud

-- 
Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch & European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself
Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/
              Arnoud blogt nu ook: http://blog.iusmentis.com/


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