RE: ZyXEL Kernel /BusyBox GPL violation?

["David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com>]

> > Also if they didn't modify the kernel, they don't have to give you
> > source, they can just refer you to kernel.org.
>
> Wrong.....
>
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DistributeWithS
> ourceOnInternet
> [[[I want to distribute binaries without accompanying sources. Can I
> provide source code by FTP instead of by mail order?
>     You're supposed to provide the source code by mail-order on a
> physical medium, if someone orders it. You are welcome to offer people
> a way to copy the corresponding source code by FTP, in addition to the
> mail-order option, but FTP access to the source is not sufficient to
> satisfy section 3 of the GPL.
>
>     When a user orders the source, you have to make sure to get the
> source to that user. If a particular user can conveniently get the
> source from you by anonymous FTP, fine--that does the job. But not
> every user can do such a download. The rest of the users are just as
> entitled to get the source code from you, which means you must be
> prepared to send it to them by post.
>
>     If the FTP access is convenient enough, perhaps no one will choose
> to mail-order a copy. If so, you will never have to ship one. But you
> cannot assume that.
>
>     Of course, it's easiest to just send the source with the binary in
> the first place. ]]]

	I'm sorry, this makes no sense. What if a user can't conveniently get the
source by mail?

	More users can more conveniently get the source by HTTP than can get it by
mail. This argument may have made sense many years ago, but it doesn't now.

	The GPL does not say you have to mail it. The GPL says you have to provide
it "on a medium customarily used for software interchange". That means *YOU*
get to pick the medium, you just can't pick one that's so obscure that
nobody could decode it. The web is just such a medium.

	DS


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