RedHat SRPMS

[Federico Sacerdoti]

On Friday, October 3, 2003, at 11:22 AM, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:

>> If you publish a product (sell it, whatever) where any portion of it
>> uses GPL code, you must make freely available the full source of your
>> product. I doubt that freely available means if you ask really nicely
>> someone in Europe will send a CD.
>>
>> I dont see how you "dont have to" do this. Your packages are often 
>> made
>> according to rules listed in GPL'd spec files, which means you would
>> have to publish those as well. There doesn't seem to be anything in a
>> SRPM that you are not legally required to disclose under GPL.
>
> GPL says nothing about putting it on the NET.
>
> 1)"..You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy,
> and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a 
> fee."
>
> 3a)
> "..which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2
> above on a medium customarily used for software interchange.."

I could reliably argue that this (3a) means the Internet. A vast 
majority of software in our realm is distributed this way, etc.

Also, an argument could also be made that the source must be available 
over the same medium as the binaries. If you distribute your binary via 
the Internet, the source must also be available over the Internet. 
Otherwise, you are making the source "more difficult" to get in some 
sense, and are violating 3a) almost by definition.

Federico

Rocks Cluster Group, San Diego Supercomputing Center, CA