[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >>>>> The GPL discriminates against people on >>>>> desert islands who have a binary CD but not a source one. >>>> >>>>I must have missed that one. How? >>> >>> Because they can't give any of the contents to their washed-up >>> companion. >> >>That person has either deleted his copies of the source or failed to >>ask for them; either way, it's his own fault. Alternately, somebody >>upstream of him has violated the copyright by not obeying the >>license. > > Well, he may have that written offer to get source copies for three year, > don't he ?
The guy on the desert island could redistribute the object code and the three-year-source-code notice noncommercially under GPL 3(c), as long as he got it in binary format. I am not sure how that meshes with the common interpretation that offering the source and binary side-by-side -- as distributions do -- but I would hope that someone stranded on a desert island with a Debian install CD could set up the island's Beowulf cluster without infringing the GPL. (Toungue firmly in cheek, but you get the idea.) > And i have some doubt that if he failed to ask for them (or you where a little > silent on the proposing of them as we often do at shows and such), that > changes anything to the issue. You should have given them to him anyway, as > is your obligation under the GPL. Where, specifically, is the obligation to do this? If I gave a binary CD to someone with the written promise to give them source code, am I resonsible for knowing whether they will be shipwrecked six months later and giving him source code in advance of the wreck? I am not sure what specific obligation you mean. Michael Poole
