From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Jan 31 5: 8:13 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from scaup.prod.itd.earthlink.net (scaup.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B73FC37B400 for ; Thu, 31 Jan 2002 05:08:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from pool0005.cvx22-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net ([209.179.198.5] helo=mindspring.com) by scaup.prod.itd.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 16WGwW-0001qR-00; Thu, 31 Jan 2002 05:07:56 -0800 Message-ID: <3C5941A5.22755B68@mindspring.com> Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 05:07:49 -0800 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Sony} (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Erik Trulsson Cc: Peter Wemm , Garance A Drosihn , Alfred Perlstein , Poul-Henning Kamp , Jordan Hubbard , Dallas De Atley , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: __P macro question References: <20020131025121.308C13A9A@overcee.wemm.org> <3C58BC92.44F5ED37@mindspring.com> <20020131091254.GA61188@student.uu.se> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org I moved this discussion to -chat for a reason. Please leave it there. Erik Trulsson wrote: > You seem to have misunderstood the GPL. No, I haven't. > Section 3 says that if you give somebody a GPL'd binary you must also > do *one* of a) b) and c) where b) is an offer valid for at least 3 > years to supply the source on demand. > > But you can just do a), which means supply the source together with the > binary. Then you have no further obligations. To do (a) for an embedded system, you have to supply seperate media with the source code. Further, if you have a network based update system (ala TiVO), then you have to provide the updated code online as well, or send a new CDROM in order to meet criteria (a). A CDROM increases the BOM (Bill Of Materials), which in turn increases the COGS (Cost Of Good Sold), and fails to satisfy the GPL in the online update case, or in the Just In Time manufacturing case, where the image load on the equipment is practically the last thing you do before shipping it (perhaps even doing the load with the system already in the shipping container, via an access panel in the container). If you are providing the code online, rather than with the product, then in order to meet the obligations that were conferred by the license, you have to be able to warrant the availability of the code for 3 years, or you get into a breach of contract liability situation, in which the product you sell becomes "illegal" to distribute. Because it is an embedded system, the "customarily used" clause insists on seperate media, be it network or other. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message