On 1 Dec 2000, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> >>"Rando" == Rando Christensen <illuzion@xanthor.net> writes:
>
> Rando> The problem with that is, an aliened .deb has been received
> Rando> from us,
>
> This statement is not correct. The Debian project does not
> distribute alienated rpms. The person at fault, if indeed there is
> someone at fault, is the entity that used alien.
I've already mentioned this, but i *MEANT* that the original .deb that we
distributed didn't contain the GPL. "the .deb that GOT aliened.."
>
> Rando> thus counting as us distributing it. And the aliened .deb (and
> Rando> the resulting .rpm/slack .tgz) would not contain the gpl in
> Rando> this circumstance, which makes us be violating the
> Rando> gpl. apparently.
>
I wasn't quite clear about this.. When I said:
"Rando> The problem with that is"
i really meant:
"Rando> RMS's problem with that is" ... I really think the theory is full
of shit, and that teh debian project DOES distribute the GPL. this is one
of the hypothetical situations that RMS is talking about.
The problem with that is, is that The GPL Version 2 was written in 1991,
where the GPL might not have been easy to find, and back when you couldn't
use the net, on it's full scale like this, to distribute lots of
software. This claus, especially, was for that purpose- so that a company
could GPL the software, and make sure the person got it, because it may
have been difficult to get.
Now, however, the "enclose a copy with the binary" part is really
unnecessary, since the source is available with the binary (from the same
location), and since we DO install a copy on every debian system. And,
more to the point, because with the NUMBER of GPL'd things out there right
now, that if someone DID download a single .deb from the archive, it's
extremely unlikely that they wouldn't have a copy of the GPL.
That was written, way before linux was 'a big player' in the server
market. Before linux was very popular. Back before linux was being.
This is nearly 10 years later. Nine and a half since gplv2. The world has
changed a little bit, on that subject.
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< <"What Am I Doing? I'm Quietly Judging You." --Frank TJ Mackey> >
< <Rando Christensen / An illuzion worth believing> >
< <illuzionz@xanthor.net> <eyez@xanthor.net> <eyez@fragments.net> >
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