> On Sat, Feb 16, 2002 at 08:23:18PM -0000, Christian Falch wrote: > > About the patch/diff-question, read the following section from the GPL FAQ: > [...] > > The essence of it is "You need to provide complete sources, not just diffs, > > with the binaries. " > > I don't mean to be pedantic, but since I myself do precisely this at > http://prc-tools.sourceforge.net/, I think it would be good if my boss > knew that it was legal. :-) > > Before I started producing prc-tools binaries, I distributed only source > patches (this was back in the 0.5.1a3 days). Now that I also distribute > binaries, I need to provide *complete* source code to those binaries. > Hence I now provide the original GCC, etc, tarballs to which the patches > apply as well as the patches themselves. This is what that FAQ entry is > referring to.
I was initially replying to Keith telling him that the GPL states that you need to make the sources available, not _just_ supply diff files. I was wrong saying that you weren't even allowed to make the sources available by request, but right saying that diffs alone aren't enough. The point raised by FSF is that the sources you initially patched against might not be available after a couple of years, making the diffs unusable. Having the original sources and the diffs to make the new and modified target available for download is _not_ a violation from my understanding. You're only violating the intentions when you supply the diffs only, right? -- Christian "last OT posting about the topic.. :-)" Falch -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/support/forums/
