Picking a license

[Paul Boddie]

On 14 Mai, 21:14, Patrick Maupin <pmau... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If Joe downloads and burns a CD for his friend, he may not have the
> sources and may not have any intention of getting them, and probably
> didn't provide a "written offer."  What you're "ignoring for the
> moment" is my whole point, that unlike Ubuntu, Joe is now in violation
> of the GPL license, because he provided neither a written offer nor
> source on CD, nor his own download site.

Now, wait a moment! Your point is that just by giving the binary CD to
someone, you are now in violation of the licence. What I tried to
explain is that this situation is anticipated - that the FSF
acknowledges that the recipient won't have received the sources at the
same time in all situations - and that the same distributor is
responsible for providing the sources. As long as they don't deny the
recipient access to the sources, by the same means, they are not
violating the licence.

You have a point about recipients not being immediately and obviously
informed of the things they are entitled to, but that is a matter for
the distributing parties to remedy: that is arguably what happens
when, upon loud squealing about matters of "ideology", distributors
decide to de-emphasise the Free Software aspect of their
distributions. Nevertheless, it is my understanding that anyone
attempting to use or install such distributions do get to see a
summary of the licences; only people who pass on the software without
inspecting it (which would involve actually inserting the CD and
booting from it) will be unaware of its contents, and they could only
be held responsible as reasonably as one's Internet service provider
if that party were asked to provide source packages for "that Linux
distro I downloaded last year".

You also have a point about whether people are able to provide sources
at a later date, which might be troublesome if someone gave someone
else a CD with an old version of Ubuntu on it and then were asked to
provide the source packages. Naturally, the FSF have attempted to
address these points in version 3 of the GPL. I would be interested to
hear the opinion of the FSF and distributors on this matter, but I
think it's absurd to accuse the FSF as operating as you allege
Microsoft do, especially as the distributors are the ones who
encourage the sharing of the installation media.

Really, if you think distributions should do a better job at educating
their users and helping them uphold any obligations that may apply to
them, you should talk to them about it. But when I attempt to work
though the issues in a thorough manner in order to thrash out what it
is you really object to - and in practice, the only objections you can
seriously have lie in those two points I mention above (not this
"instant violation" situation, discussed in more detail elsewhere [*])
- and all you can do is suggest that other people are trying to
mislead you, I struggle to feel inclined to indulge you further.

And suggesting that people have behavioural disorders ("Or because
have OCD?") might be a source of amusement to you, or may be a neat
debating trick in certain circles you admire, but rest assured that I
am neither amused nor impressed, nor are others likely to be.

Paul

[*] http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-legal@lists.debian.org/msg31466.html