ubuntu licence

[Mario Vukelic]

On Sat, 2008-11-22 at 07:58 +0200, Oguz Yarimtepe wrote:
> But isn't it compatible with the GPL also to say the address of the
> packages on Internet?

No, not if you distribute commercially. From the GPL v2 (just because I
am not really familiar yet with GPLv3):

"3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
        a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
        source code, which must be distributed under the terms of
        Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software
        interchange; or, 
        b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
        years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
        cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
        machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
        distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a
        medium customarily used for software interchange; or, 
        c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the
        offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative
        is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
        received the program in object code or executable form with such
        an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)"
        
Note how c) is only allowed for non-commercial distribution. Commercial
distribution requires either a) or b) - either include the source right
away or include a written offer to provide it.

There were quite a few extended discussion about this in the past, e.g.,
whether Linux Mint (an Ubuntu offshoot) can point to Ubuntu's sources or
has to provide its own.

If you are unclear about the legal aspects wrt to the GPL, I'd suggest
to contact the FSF Compliance lab [1] and, as said earlier, you should
contact Canonical in any case [2]

[1] http://www.fsf.org/licensing/index_html
[2] http://www.ubuntu.com/partners