For the sake of civility, I think I'll stop my participation in this thread here.
Shachar Peter wrote: > > On Sun, 3 Dec 2006, Shachar Shemesh wrote: > >> Peter wrote: >>> >>> On Sat, 2 Dec 2006, Shachar Shemesh wrote: >>> >>> A small Linux distro often does not have the resources to put up a >>> full source tree. >> yes, I know. However, for all practical purposes, the license does >> not consider this. I'm not even sure it could if it wanted to. > > Really ? Why would it. After all, Linux source contributors are all > billionaires secretly hoarding $$$, yachts and blondes. They wear old > pullovers and sneakers with holes at conventions to confuse the > public. And beards so they can fool groceries about their age and buy > beer to go with the pizza. > >>> In theory linking to the source tree stored elsewhere and supplying a >>> diff against that should be enough. >> I'm not sure you are right. > > Neither am I but WHERE DOES IT SAY THE MODS SOURCE AND THE ORIGINAL > SOURCE MUST BE ON THE SAME SERVER ? (actually it is worse than that, > see below) > >> The GPL has one aim in mind - maintaining the software's freedom. >> Imagine the following scenario: >> 1. Party A rolls out a new Linux distribution. Many of utilities on the >> distribution are unmodified, and so it says "just download them from X". >> 2. A's distro becomes popular. >> 3. One of the upstream providers goes bankrupt, and so has to pull his >> stuff off the web. >> >> Effectively, A are now violating the GPL, despite not doing anything to >> cause 3. 3 can happen in lots of other ways. For example, upstream >> decides that the version in question has become too old, and replaces it >> with a new one. > > This logic is sick. Obviously the downstream people will do something > in this case. It has happened before and it will happen again. If > there is enough interest then a 'fork' and freeze occurs for the data > from the 'defunct' distributor. > >> This GPL article comes in to prevent this scenario. If you distribute >> the binary, you have the legal obligation to give the source. You cannot >> off-load this obligation to anyone else. > > ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY THAT THE SOURCES FOR THE MODIFICATIONS MUST BE > ON THE SAME SERVER WITH THE 6GB OF SOURCES FOR THE REST OF THE SYSTEM, > YES OR NO ? AND IF YOU SAY THAT, WHO MANDATED YOU TO SAY IT ? > >>> When I made a single floppy linux demo ten years ago and uploaded it >>> to sunsite I got a request for source (it was clearly stated on the >>> floppy how it was made). I answered the email with the same >>> description (take 1.2.13 source tree, apply patch by Petri Matilla >>> (sp?), compile, copy binaries from list into image, dd kernel and >>> image to disk and you are done). The 'answer' was that the floppy >>> image was deleted from sunsite (I could have supplied more exact >>> instructions if asked - but I was not asked). I used it for ten years. >>> At the time I had 33600 modem access only and I used to run up 200NIS >>> bills for Internet alone, plus phone costs. There was no way I could >>> offer a full source mirror and sending source CDs out abroad would >>> have bankrupted me (I did not own a burner then). >> You could have asked for S&H fees. It's right there in the license. > > I was not in a position to ask for anything. At the time my S&H fee > would have included a cd burner and I had exactly one request for > source: from the b**** who then deleted the image from sunsite. Not > only that but I got a comment from tomsrbt I think, that it was 'just > a script'. Obviously it was a script, the demo had an easy menu > system, it was meant for first time users who take an intro Unix > course. That was its purpose. An easy menu that explains everything > and then drops into a shell so the exercises from the book can be worked. > >>> If the cleverness of the guardian dogs of open source consists in >>> making sure that aggregators and contributors have at least 5GB >>> storage and 500GB/month transfer for something that used to fit on two >>> floppies (never mind one) ten years ago then they are not clever. And >>> those who are not aggregators or never created or contributed (to) any >>> projects and just bark along are just dogs imho. >> What about people who are neither? > > Those would be users. Where exactly are you on this ? Did you > contribute to some project ? > >> The thing is, as has come up before, no one has EVER revoked a GPL >> license due to this clause. The fact remains that it's still there, and >> there for good reasons. > > I know, but deleting a diskette image has been done before. A diskette > image that was uploaded at the cost of sweat and blood in about 5 or 6 > tries, and it took 12 minutes each try. > >>> If this is a bandwidth-pissing contest I want to know now. >> No, it's a question of freedom, just like (most of) the rest of the GPL. > > So you are free to pay through the nose for bandwidth or keep your > patches and demos for yourself ? Good to know. But do you mind if I'll > ask a couple more people before I draw conclusions ? > > Just for the record: sunsite where I uploaded that demo in 1996 or 97 > had the full sources for the relevant kernel on that server, and the > patch I had used was also somewhere up there, or I could have uploaded > it. It was not small but I would have tried. > > Peter > > ================================================================= > To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with > the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command > echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- Shachar Shemesh Lingnu Open Source Consulting ltd. Have you backed up today's work? http://www.lingnu.com/backup.html ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
