24-Nov-03 22:02 Don Armstrong wrote: > On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Alexander Cherepanov wrote: >> Sorry for the intrusion, but is there a consensus on this issue? I.e. >> why binaries can not be distributed under section 2 of the GPL?
> When binaries are not the prefered form for modification, as in the > case where there is still source code extant[1], in order to > redistribute under the terms of the GPL, you need to be able to > provide source (the prefered form for modification.) Why? Section 2 of the GPL doesn't require to provide source. It doesn't talk about source at all. > 1: In my opinion anyway, it is not enough that source is not available > to the secondary distributor. What is source according to the GPL is an interesting question, but that's another question. And answer is only needed when you want to distribute something under section 3 of the GPL. So it's not directly relevant in case of Debian. Let me quote Walter Landry again (http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200212/msg00182.html): Section 3 gives you rights in addition to section 2. Section 3 lets you distribute a particular kind of modification that is not allowed in Section 2 (a modification that incorporates things that can not be licensed under the GPL). But Debian is not doing that, so there is no need to resort to section 3. > If it exists anywhere, it must be > provided in order to distribute the code. Furthermore, as a > maintainer, you should be very carefull about maintaining a package > (or parts of a package) where there is no source available... > maintainablility, trojans, et al. all become a much more serious > problem without source. Sure source is a big plus:-) But there are many "binaries" where the lack of source is not that fatal -- bitmap pictures generated from layered source, PostScript/PDF generated from TeX, info generated from texinfo, etc. Another example is fonts. For instance there was a thread "Bug#182402: ttf-freefont is violating the GNU GPL" starting from http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200302/msg00154.html about distributing fonts without the source SFD files (unfortunately it wasn't discussed why section 3 of the GPL should be applied, instead of section 2). Sasha
