Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Thu, Jan 10, 2002 at 03:03:45PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > > > If linking is "changing", that would seem to make licenses that say "you > > > can > > > distribute unmodified binaries only" impossible--you'd only be able to > > > distribute binaries supplied by the author. > > > > Quite right. I have no idea what those licenses mean, but I've > > generally only seen them when the author in fact is supplying > > binaries. > > What they *mean* seems fairly obvious to me: you can recompile the source > (presumably for different architectures or library versions), and > distribute those binaries, but you can't modify the source and > distribute binaries based on that.
Except to say "you can only distribute unmodified binaries" makes no sense if there are no binaries to begin with. Compiling source to a binary *is* a modification, it *is* the creation of a derived work. Your interpretation would say that when the license says "you may not distribute modified binaries" it means "you may not distribute binaries made from modified source", which is a quite different thing.
