On Tue, 2008-10-14 at 19:43 +1300, Martin Langhoff wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 7:09 PM, Ralf Corsepius rc040203@freenet.de wrote:
The free availability of binaries is never a requirement for any of the free and open source licenses.
This is what RedHat propaganda is telling you.
I've done several papers in Law School specifically on software licensing and analysis of GPL and related licenses. Rahul's statement is correct -- no licenses require availability of binaries.
Might be awkward or less than helpful, but it's comfortably within the rules of the license.
I am not doubting this: It's a different definition of free. It's one case of the usual word-games with "freedom"-related words.
To me, a product you can not get without having to pay for, doesn't qualify as free - It's may be free in the sense of "intellectual property", but this doesn't make it free in the "common man's sense".
Ask your neighbor, if he would pay USD600 for a barrel of "free beer".
Ralf