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New It's amazing, really.

The FSF apparently haven't read their own license. Section 3(c) -- which allows you to pass along the offer of source you received from upstream instead of distributing the source yourself -- seems to cover this case, unless I've completely misread it.

--\r\nYou cooin' with my bird?
New Perhaps YOU should re-read it
MEPIS did some commercial distribution of code. Therefore they cannot opt to use section 3(c). They also made changes and recompiled, so again they cannot opt to use section 3(c).

Plus there is no place that actually gives you the full sourcecode to MEPIS. If someone gave me a distribution and then told me 50 places that I could go to find it in pieces, then I'd consider that the spirit if not the letter of the GPL was violated.

Cheers,
Ben
a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. -- Warren Buffett
New Aye
I love the distro - but finding all the source for it was a pain. I'll be glad when he fixes it.

Of course, the best part of the distro (HW detection & config) wasn't OSS in the first place.

Imric's Tips for Living
  • Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
  • Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
  • Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.


Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
 
 
New Ah. The FUD struck.

So many of the articles on this have been "OMG anyone who distributes Linux at all has to maintain full source trees of everything". Which ain't true.

\r\n\r\n

As for the "spirit" of the GPL, well, I honestly wouldn't be bothered by a distro that just passed along the source offers for anything they were distributing without modification. I don't expect the GPL to impose any undue burden on someone who wants to comply with the ideal of having the source be freely available.

--\r\nYou cooin' with my bird?
New What FUD?
You were claiming that MEPIS could just invoke part 3(c) of the GPL. You were wrong. Will you acknowledge the mistake?

I'm also puzzled by your claim that "the FUD struck." Your comments there seem to be directed at lots of people, none of whom are me.

As for the "spirit" of the GPL, the spirit of the GPL is that it is up to the distributer to make it as easy as possible for the recipient to get source. The only concession that is made to make this obligation easier on the distributer only applies if your distribution is non-commercial and you are distributing binaries that that you got elsewhere with an offer of source code.

In fact the FSF tries to interpret this part of the GPL even less generously than I do. Their FAQ would have you believe that you have to be willing to ship source code on physical media. Every other interpretation that I've seen (including mine) is that it is sufficient to just throw the code up on an FTP site. And, of course, maintaining an FTP site really isn't a very onerous task.

Cheers,
Ben
a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. -- Warren Buffett
     Created a distro? You must make *all* the source available. - (Another Scott) - (7)
         Might be a better idea, too - (drewk) - (1)
             s/other\\ other/gripping -NT - (inthane-chan)
         It's amazing, really. - (ubernostrum) - (4)
             Perhaps YOU should re-read it - (ben_tilly) - (3)
                 Aye - (imric)
                 Ah. The FUD struck. - (ubernostrum) - (1)
                     What FUD? - (ben_tilly)

It was April the 41st. Being a quadruple leapyear, I was driving in downtown Atlantis. My Barracuda was in the shop, so I was in a rented Stingray... and it was overheating.
77 ms