Brian Mays <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > <sarcasm> > But what if someone (named Fred) downloads our package and makes an RPM > out of it (using alien) and gives it to his friend (named Bob, who knows > nothing about Debian) and is hit by a car and dies. Oh my god! Bob would > then be left without knowledge or access to the source of the binaries, > and therefore a grievous violation of the GPL would have occurred! We > MUST include the source too in our packages, to prevent tragic situations > such as this. > </sarcasm>
This would be a crazy case indeed. But the problem here is that there are companies which try to set up exactly that kind of situation, or as close as they can come. There are companies which really do try to trick people out of the rights they have on GPL'd software; it can and does happen. The danger with those companies is that if we actually go after them, they might say "hey, we're just doing what Debian does; we have a copy of the license buried somewhere in our website, and if users read line 7231 of the manual they'll see exactly how to get a copy". Now, that *isn't* what Debian does, but the problem with slippery slopes of precedent is at the beginning. So the FSF needs to make sure that friends in the free software community play by the rules, even if the danger isn't so high, because otherwise our enemies might start ignoring the rules, and claiming the behavior of our friends as precedent. Thomas
