Re: web hosting providers' modified .debs
> Just curious, e.g., dreamhost.com modifies Debian .debs to produce
> their hosting environment, which we Dreamhost users then use on our
> shell accounts there.
>
> If I can do
> $ cat file
> then I should always also be able to cat the source (.deb) to that
> same cat, no? (I can at present.)
It's ambigous in the GPLv2. The GPLv3 makes it pretty clear that
Dreamhost can take your rights on that software away (read: you aren't
even allowed to copy the binaries[1]), and does not have to provide
source code in this case. Only if they allow you to copy the binaries,
they are forced to provide source code as well.
[1] This doesn't have to be enforced by the file system.
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