From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Jul 15 16:26:47 1996 Return-Path: owner-chat Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id QAA28677 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 15 Jul 1996 16:26:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from goldman.gnu.ai.mit.edu (goldman.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.41]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA28665 for ; Mon, 15 Jul 1996 16:26:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: by goldman.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) id TAA08896; Mon, 15 Jul 1996 19:25:55 -0400 Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1996 19:25:55 -0400 Message-Id: <199607152325.TAA08896@goldman.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: nate@mt.sri.com CC: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <199607152258.QAA21464@rocky.mt.sri.com> (message from Nate Williams on Mon, 15 Jul 1996 16:58:02 -0600 (MDT)) Subject: Re: What's so evil about GPL From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >>>>> You are forced to become a software redistribution >>>>> institution once you have modified some of the source code, >>>>> and intend to redistribute your modified work. >>>> Er... Well, to redistribute your work, you normally have to be >>>> allied with a software distributor, right? >>> No. Not if you are a small company serving a dozen or so small >>> customers. >> Then you need only provide the source to those. If they choose to >> redistribute, it is their obligation to provide your source, no >> longer yours. > So you become a 'software redistribution institution' to a small > number of folks instead of a large number of folks. :) That's a task you already undertook. You decided to distribute the program, even if that entails only a single tape. One method of satisfying the GPL means handing them an extra tape with the sources. Note that the only requirement that involves things like taking orders, et al is in paragraph 3b, but you only need to perform one of the qualifications in 3[abc], so giving them the source at the same time as the binaries cleans your backside. -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Fourth law of computing: Anything that can go wro .signature: segmentation violation -- core dumped