[Mailman-Users] Commercial distributions of Mailman & GPL

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Brad Knowles writes:

 > It's Python, so unless they're doing a pre-compiled bytecode
 > distribution, they are distributing the source on the same media as
 > the installer -- the source is all they've got.

Not quite.  The full source as defined by the GPL includes any build
scripts such as checkperms, Makefiles, and setup.py.  You're also
supposed to say something about the changes you've made, which Apple
does quite precisely by supplying a diff.  I'm not sure what
infrastructure (eg, Xcode) might be required, but presumably you can
build exactly what they distribute, just as they do.

That is a substantially more stringent requirement than "you've got
the Python sources" in many cases, and that is what the GPL requires.