Re: Economics and the GPL

"Deven T. Corzine" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.emulators.wine.license
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, Roland wrote:

> At 04:17 PM 6/10/02 -0400, Deven T. Corzine wrote:
> 
> >Actually, the GPL may have a loophole -- you can comply with the GPL by
> >accompanying the binary with a written offer to provide the source.  What
> >if the written offer were to say that the source would be released 5 years
> 
> I don't think this is enough. AFAIK if you ship a binary you have to ship 
> the source in the same package and in machine readable form...

Wrong.  Go read the actual text of the GPL again.  Shipping the source 
along with the binary is just ONE of several alternatives to satisfying the 
requirement to provide the source to that binary.  Another alternative was 
to provide a written offer, redeemable by third parties as well, valid for 
up to three years, to provide the source in question.

It doesn't specify how quickly that offer must be redeemed, however.  That 
is the possible loophole.  Sure, the FSF would claim it should be redeemed 
immediately, but the GPL doesn't actually state that as a requirement!

Deven
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