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Ubuntu Open to Aiding Derivative Distributions
lisah writes "Bruce Byfield wrote recently of a GPL requirement that may have unintended consequences for derivative distributions. Ubuntu's technical leader Matt Zimmerman responded with the suggestion that the folks at Ubuntu might be able to assist. From the article: 'It's less clear to me whether a legal agreement with the upstream distributor could satisfy this requirement," Zimmerman says, talking about the obligation to provide source code for everything that a distro ships, "but given that Ubuntu is already obligated to continue to distribute source code for as long as we distribute binaries, it's possible that we could offer that kind of assistance if it would help.'" Newsforge is also owned by OSTG.
I wouldn't say it's FUD: the GPL *does* have this requirement, that you either distribute source or provide a written offer to distribute source.
They should just distribute the source. It isn't hard, is it?
Well, they can accompany the binaries with a written offer to deliver the source code on request. They can then charge whatever it costs them to provide it (within reasonable limits I presume).
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
A lot of comments right now are to the effect of, "Why is it so hard to distribute the source?". Well, let me ask you this, do you run or rent a web site at this time? Do you have any clue how massive the original sources for some of these derivative projects are? Imagine, for instance, you're a small freelancer who writes say, 4 mb of changes to a project, but then you find you have to provide the source for the 500 mb+ original. Most people cannot afford that kind of bandwidth. And before everyone jumps on me that you can just mail out a cd/dvd with the source on it after charging handling, yes that's legit, but thats not what the original people were asking, i'm just trying to clear up some of the confusion.
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
Is this what you're looking for? Or this?
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Ubuntu isn't the problem. Its derivatives of Ubuntu who aren't distributing the source who are. And all they have to do is *gasp* distribute the source.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Not entirely accurate. SuSE is derived from Slackware, for example. The fork was originally in the mid-1990s, but as of the early 2000s they still had the same disk set structure.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
> "On the server where I distribute the packages, I only need to distribute the latest version of the compiled code; however, due to the GPL requirements, I have to keep source packages available for the next 3 years -- that is, I need to keep 150+ source packages available."
:)
No, that's not true! I don't know if you're merely ignorant or trying to FUD, but bottom line is that you're simply wrong!
If you're making the source available with the binaries, then you don't need to make the source available for three years. The three-year clause (clause 3b) only applies if you're not providing source when you provide binaries. You can either (3a) provide source with the binaries or (3b) include a three-year written offer to provide the source or (3c) pass along a 3b offer that you received (non-commercial distributors only). Those are alternative options, not simultaneous requirements. And nobody with any sense uses anything but clause 3a! (Note: I've used all three.)
Look at the last paragraph in section 3: "If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code." (Emphasis mine.) This is the famous "equivalent access" clause that almost all non-commercial distros rely on, and have for years. (At least, all the ones run by people with any sense.)
So having source and binaries on your site qualifies as complying with clause 3a, and you don't need to worry about the three-year feature of 3b!
If you're distributing on CD/DVD, the same reasoning applies. Just ship the source too! Yes, it may double your up-front media costs, but those are trivial compared to your other costs, and it's going to save you a lot of trouble down the road.
A lot of comments right now are to the effect of, "Why is it so hard to distribute the source?". Well, let me ask you this, do you run or rent a web site at this time? Do you have any clue how massive the original sources for some of these derivative projects are?
Well, have you ever actually read the GPL? The GPL does not require that you offer the source for free, only that you guarantee that the source will be available for a reasonable fee for the effort to provide the source. There's nothing there that requires you to have the source available on a website.
Heck, download the sources and burn it a DVD-R. Have in the derivative distribution the offer to copy the DVD-R and send it for $10, postage included. That would be enough to fulfill the requirements of the DVD-R.
They are using the copywrited work of others and have a legal obligation to comply with the licenses under which that work is distributed.
Copyrighted. They have rights to the work, they're not writing it on a piece of paper.
GPL offers you the right to charge a "small fee" for distribution CDR, DVD or bandwidth. If you put on a small fee, only for the packages you've changed, and tell people that they can download the unchanged packages for free from the distro you derived from. They will most likely do so, else you'll probably make 5$ to pay for the bandwidth.
What you say about Fedora is not completely true. Fedora Core (the core repo) is pretty much controlled by Redhat, but the Extras repo (which is official and enabled by default), which includes about twice as many packages, is more community-oriented. If you, as a Fedora user, would like to see a package included in Extras, then you're free to package it yourself and ask for it to be included with you as the packager/maintainer. It has to conform to a few rules though, like no non-free software, I think.
There's also several other repos available (livna, freshrpms, dries come to mind) which don't have anything to do with Redhat and include packages which add things like mp3 support etc.