On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 05:24:31PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > > I take it back. > > Binaries do not need to have the GPL with them, according to the GPL, > at least not directly. > > Rather, a binary can only be distributed if you also distribute > source. Source can only be distributed if you put a copy of the > license in with it, according to the terms of the license. > > And this is what Debian does. We distribute source and binary > packages; it's already been settled that we don't need to force people > to download the sources with the binaries. (But CD-printers must be > wary; it is illegal for them to distribute only binaries; linuxcare's > little disks, for example, are GPL violations.) > > And our source packages do contain copies of the GPL, as they must. > Indeed, but I was under the impression that altough binaries need the source code to be distributed the source code needs not to be in the same media as the binaries, i.e: 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: (...) b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, (...) So, if CD vendors ship the binaries they need not ship the source code, but need to provide, upon request, the source code without a fee (apart from the production fee). I always assumed the question was about ppl being able to download source packages that didn't include the GPL... of course in this case we not only needed to include the GPL but also a written offer :) I'm pretty sure this isn't so simple... could you please correct me on this? Best regards, fsm -- Frederico S. Muñoz GNU http://www.gnu.org fsmunoz@sdf.lonestar.org Debian http://www.debian.org http://sdf.lonestar.org - SDF Public Access Unix Systems
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