Hello everyone, I think it is time for me to unsubscribe from this list, since the discussion went into personal interpretations/opinions/beliefs about the "right" way to interpret the GPL, rather than bringing new insights.
As a summary, I hope the fact has been made clear that a written (and, with the checksum of the entire CD, digitally signed) offer to provide the sources to anyone, valid for 3 years, is present on each Knoppix CD. This is surely not a perfect technical solution in the digital age, but sufficient (in my eyes) for complying with the current GPL. If there is anything more to discuss, about a certain way to interpret the GPL or whether or not free software should be distributed at all and by whom and to whom, I would suggest asking the poeple who created the license, know its intention and enforce its compliance, which would be the Free Software Foundation. I am in contact with the FSF and got the impression that they are way more cool about most things than some people on this list are. ;-) Anyways, thanks for a worthwile discussion, and let's hope that free software developers don't get put off by too many legalese issues in the future. If software patents are established in europe, for example, we will have an entirely new dimension of problems, but that is a different topic. With kind regards -Klaus Knopper
