GPL compliance

Daniel Carrera daniel.carrera at zmsl.com
Fri Jun 30 17:32:41 UTC 2006


On Fri, 2006-30-06 at 17:47 +0100, deanlinkous wrote:
> The GPL is very easy to read and it is not confusing.

Compared to most licenses I've seen, yes it's very easy. But it does
have several points that are not clear. Especially to a non lawyer such
as your humble servant.

> If you offer a download of the binaies then you MUST offer a download
> of source.

The GPL doesn't say that. You are interpreting a bit.

> You can charge for that download up to the cost of the
> binaries.

The GPL doesn't say that, and indeed, this is not true. For example, you
can give the binaries for free and charge $1 for the sources. What the
GPL says is that you can charge up to the cost of physically performing
the cost distribution (so, if it's a CD, a $2 is fair).

> As to ordering a source cd... from the shipit FAQ
> Can You Send Me Source CDs?
> 
> We do not normally distribute source CDs and you cannot order them
> through shipit. That said, in order to comply with the GPL, we are
> happy to distribute source code on CD to anybody we give a binary CD.
> More information is written in fine print on the back of each CD.
> Source for everything on the CD is always available at
> http://archive.ubuntu.com or can be ordered from Canonical for them
> cost of the media plus shipping. 
> 
> Seems to cover the bases to me... :D


Thanks for that FAQ.

Cheers,
Daniel.
-- 
http://opendocumentfellowship.org
  "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the
  unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself.
  Therefore all progress depends on unreasonable men."
        -- George Bernard Shaw





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