[ILUG] Re: GPL and Apple (was Red Hat in Easons ? ?)

[David Golden]

On Wednesday 03 October 2001 10:11, Liam Bedford wrote:

> You don't get the source, but I'm sure Apple have
> figgered a way out of that one).

Well, GPL source doesn't *have* to be published as a nice tarball on the 
internet - all the license says is that the source has to be made publically 
available - AFAIK,  an offer to mail the source on a few floppies
or burned onto a CD to someone upon request still suffices to fulfil the 
terms of distribution, as they each also qualify as a "medium customarily 
used for software interchange".  You're even allowed charge a small fee for 
the cost of the media and distribution. GNU software used to come on tapes,
in the days before internet access was widespread...

These days, of course,  releasing the source on the internet has
by far the least overhead of any method - and if, for some bizarre reason, 
the original author doesn't post the source on the internet, then a third
party is still entitled to.

Seee GPL v2, section 3 b and c :

    3 b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
    years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
    cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
    machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
    distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
    customarily used for software interchange; or,
 
    3 c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
    to distribute corresponding source code.  (This alternative is
    allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
    received the program in object code or executable form with such
    an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)