Re: [PROPOSAL] Full text of GPL must be included
On 2 Dec 2000, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> John Galt <galt@inconnu.isu.edu> writes:
>
> > pkg_add -r gcc on a freebsd box will pull down a binary of gcc without a
> > copy of the GPL.
>
> Perhaps I'm confused, but I thought the normal procedure was the
> "ports" mechanism, which pulls down source and compiles it locally.
> If it's actually more like the way Debian or Red Hat do it, then
> certainly the same issue applies there.
A good portion of ports are built into binary packages. The ports are the
preferred method for adding to FreeBSD, but binary packages exist: can you
imagine the fun of compiling XFree86 4.0.1 from scratch on a '486? I
don't have to imagine it, I dealt with it for a week. Soon after that is
when I had the crash course in the binary packages.
> However, it's the case that RMS is mostly ignorant of how things like
> big OS distributions are structured; you shouldn't assume that he's
> been aware of things all along and woke up in late November and
> decided to mail Wichert. I think it probably first came to his
> attention last month with respect to Debian (because that's what the
> FSF uses itself of course) and he doesn't know that the same thing
> applies in other systems.
>
> Feel free to tell him; you probably know those details more than I do.
>
> Thomas
>
--
CCI Power 6/40: one board, a megabyte of cache, and an attitude...
John Galt (galt@inconnu.isu.edu)
Reply to: