Picking a license

[Ed Keith]

--- On Fri, 5/14/10, Paul Boddie <paul at boddie.org.uk> wrote:


<<< lots of stuff snipped >>>

> > > Like I said, if you really have a problem with
> Ubuntu shipping CDs and
> > > exposing others to copyright infringement
> litigation.


<<< A lot more stuff snipped >>>

Everyone is assuming a certain degree of computer savvy.

I have not installed Ubuntu, but I understand that they strive for ease of 
use, so I assume that if ant now, at some time in the near future, my 
farther, who knows very little about computers, could install it if I gave 
him a CD with it on it (He would never be able to burn it himself).

Supposes download the ISO image and burn a CD and give it to my father. 
(As I understand it I am now in violation of the GPL, but I may not be). 
My father installs it. He likes it, he gives it to a friend. 

Now suppose, just for the sake of argument, that Ubuntu forgets to renew 
their domain name and it gets taken over by a porn site (It happens to Web 
mechanic, it could happen to anyone). If my father's friend's teenage son 
wants the source code, he can not get it from his father, who does not 
even know what source code is. He does not know that I exist, because his 
father forgot where he got the disk. He can not get the source from the 
porn site. 

Clearly someone has violated the GPL, but I'm not sure who, I think it was me, but I may be wrong. If not me who? My father for giving the disk I gave him to a friend? My father's friend for not keeping track of who gave him the disk? Ubuntu, for not including the source in the ISO image I downloaded? or for allowing a porn site to take over their domain name?

It is questions like this that make me steer clear of the GPL. If I give 
my father a CD of Microsoft software, I know I'm breaking the law. If I 
give my father a CD of BSD software licensed software I'm on firm legal 
ground. If I give my father a CD of GPLed software, I'm on shaky ground 
unless I include all the source, which he has no use for, on a second 
disk. And if he give his friend the binary disk, but not the source disk 
(which is of no value to him or his friend), then he is in violation of 
the law, and he cannot even understand why.

The GPL is fine when all parties concern understand what source code is 
and what to do with it. But when you add people like my father to the loop 
if gets very ugly very fast.

    -EdK

Ed Keith
e_d_k at yahoo.com

Blog: edkeith.blogspot.com