Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > When the FSF starts playing by these rulkes, perhaps we shall > have the basis of a discussion.
You seem to be regarding the FSF as the enemy here, and I think that's unlikely to help. The issue is about the downloading of advertised things, not things like ftp:.../bin/ls or the like. The question of intent to distribute does matter. The intent of Debian is to distribute not just a complete system, but also individual packages. (Consider security alerts, which suggest that people download specific package files.) The distribution of those packages requires the GPL to be given along with the binaries, and in fact it isn't. It isn't like we offer it and the user says "no, I've alread got it", it just isn't there. The FSF almost plays by that rule too: but you are quite right that for patch files, and test binaries, and things like that, bits of GPL'd binary or source are frequently advertised in a way that's very parallel to the Debian situation. I asked RMS about that, and he decided that he would need to ask the attorneys about it, because it is indeed curious. So we may not know more until they get back to him. Thomas
