Re: Open Source ???
On Mon, Nov 05, 2001 at 08:37:35AM -0500, Raphael Bustin wrote:
> Whew. Hard to keep up. You know -- I didn't personally
> "select" 2.2.18pre21 -- it was on a CD that came with
> "Debian GNU/Linux Bible".
>
> Why would the author of this book choose to distribute
> a short-lived version of Debian?
I'm guessing that he distributes one point release of Debian 2.2
(potato), whereas the Debian archive is currently at a later one. Stable
point releases often feature kernel updates.
> And, isn't it required that *all* the sources (including
> headers) be archived, for all releases?
No. Debian is not required to archive past sources under any licence in
main I know of, and we don't have enough disk space to do so. If you're
thinking of sections 3(b) or 3(c) of the GPL, neither of those apply to
the Debian archive, as we accompany binaries with source code under
section 3(a) instead. However, you're entitled to write to the
distributor of the Debian GNU/Linux Bible and ask for the source to the
kernel packages they distribute, if they didn't ship them on the CD with
the book. Strictly speaking they should have included an offer to
distribute source code in the book.
Despite all this, stable releases are archived to a reasonable extent -
see normal mirrors and mirrors of archive.debian.org. They might only
keep the latest point release, though.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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