Re: possible GPL violation by Free

[Rik van Riel]

On Sun, 10 Oct 2004, Sam Hocevar wrote:

>    To carefully verify this, you need to have a Freebox user ask
> Free for the Linux source code. No one else is entitled to do it.

This is some serious misinformation, that needs to be corrected.

Please take a look at your copy of the GPL, in particular section 3.
It states that the distributor of the software has 3 options, the
third one only for non-profit distribution, so not applicable here.
This leaves Free with 2 options:

1) distribute the source together with the binaries, which they
   do not appear to be doing

2) distribute the source with an offer, for ANY 3rd party, to
   get the source code on request (they don't appear to be doing
   this either)


In addition to this, I find the reasoning that "people rent the
box, so we don't sell the software" to be very suspicious.  Even
if the boxes are only rented, the software on them is still being
distributed!

IANAL, of course, so YMMV ...

-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan

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