Roy Bamford posted on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:50:53 +0000 as excerpted: > On 2011.01.20 02:55, Diego Elio Pettenò wrote: >> Il giorno mer, 19/01/2011 alle 20.07 -0500, Rich Freeman ha scritto: >> > Forward going? Or, should we go ahead and start retroactively >> > updating ebuilds that have mirror:// in them right now? Presumably >> > without a revbump over something like this... >> > >> > >> I wouldn't mind if it was done retroactively, but I'm not going to ask >> right now for all the ebuilds in tree right now to be converted. If you >> do happen to pass through a bunch of old ebuilds and edit them anyway >> please do update them to use long-term-reachable URLs. >> > How does this work when a developer leaves and his account is removed. > This will break the links to ~/public_html. > > What about our GPL obligations to provide sources? > That carries on even after an ex developers ~/public_html has been > deleted.
<My understanding, IANAL, etc.> Thankfully, Gentoo doesn't have to worry about that in most cases, because we don't provide binaries in most cases, and that's what triggers it. Where we do provide binaries, I believe we're fine as long as we've offered sources along with (and in the same manner as, CD for CD, ISO for ISO, link for link) the binaries as that fulfills our obligation. As long as the sources remain available with the binaries and the binaries are removed either first or at the same time as the sources, we're covered. If someone didn't choose to grab the sources, that's their problem. Only if we don't offer sources at the same time and in the same manner, but instead accompany the binaries with an offer for sources, does the (AFAIK) 3-year delay kick in and we have to worry about providing sources so long after the binaries are long outdated and for our part, forgotten. IOW, it pays to ensure that whenever we distribute binaries, we make sources available at the same time and in the same manner, as by doing so we avoid the three year clause entirely. =:^) Are we always ensuring that source availability in every act of (L)GPLed binary distribution? That's the BIG question, as it avoids at least the legal obligation (tho retention can be useful for practical reasons) of worrying about what happens to the sources after we've stopped distributing the binaries (and developers have left, etc) entirely. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
