On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 05:36:42PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> So you're right that the rule is that the GPL must be shipped when you
> ship the complete work, and that it's not quite sensible to mean with
> every piece of the complete work.
Note that we ship the base-files package marked as "Essential: yes",
and it's shipped accompanying every .deb on every Debian mirror.
Somewhat analogously, if you have an unpacked source tree available by
HTTP, presumably that's okay, even if the user never bothers downloading
the COPYING.GPL file (since if they wanted to read it, they trivially
could have). Yes? Or must the HTTP server be modified to attach the GPL
to every file downloaded, just in case?
This seems analogous to the Debian archive, to me.
Is it also illegal to email a 20 line, GPLed, .c file to someone,
without attaching the entire GPL?
That seems analogous to someone giving someone else a floppy with a
single .deb on it, to me, rather than any Debian does itself.
Would you really suggest that every source file should include the
complete text of the GPL so as to ensure the latter never happens? That
seems analogous to what you're suggesting here. It seems like an awkward
and cumbersome solution to something that's not actually a problem
for anyone.
Cheers,
aj, who begins to see the BSD folks' point
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
``Thanks to all avid pokers out there''
-- linux.conf.au, 17-20 January 2001
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