On Wed, 26 Nov 2003, Henning Makholm wrote: > I think Alexander's point may have merit. If you distribute whatever > precise bits it was that the copyright holder waved a copy of the GPL > over, those bits must be assumed to be "the Program", and as such GPL > #2 gives you right to distribute a modified version of the bits.
At least, the way I read the GPL, 2 gives you the right to distribute
a modified version of the Program Source (which is what 1 covers).
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, in any medium, [...]
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section
1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
[...]
Now, I suppose you could construct an argument that the binaries were
the "Program's source code" as you received it, but I don't really
think that's an appropriate argument giving the rather clear wording
in 3.
> 1. This is clearly a wording oversight in the GPL. I'm not sure that
> Debian should base its decisions to distrtibute things on such
> loopholes.
Yeah. I actually was running a slightly less pathological case, eg,
where a binary (or other difficult to modify form) actually was the
prefered form for modification by Eben Moglen recently, and he wasn't
particularly happy about it either. [I wouldn't be surprised if an
attempt is made to clean up this ambiguity in subsequent versions of
the GPL.]
Don Armstrong
--
There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good
sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
-- Woody Allen
http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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