On Tue, 2008-10-14 at 19:43 +1300, Martin Langhoff wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 7:09 PM, Ralf Corsepius
<rc040203(a)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