Andrew Collier wrote: > Unfortunately, the GPL does not clearly define its use of the term > "distribution". I would say that if Simon does not make the binary > generally available, then there is no requirement to make the source > generally available. > > Like I said, give him time. I'm sure that the source will be properly > released as soon as the binary is.
I hope so, and I don't suppose that would be being unreasonable. > Note that the developer of SimCoupe/MacOS has also neglected to > distribute the source - and he *is* distributing the binary. The bastard! (...) > He's not abusing copyright. > > But even if he were, the situations are entirely asymmetric. The > copyright-owners of the games will suffer financial loss due to > piracy. Allan Skillman would not suffer financial loss due to the > distribution of SimCoupe Win32. > > Simon can mend the damage by starting to distribute his own source. > You can't mend damage by undistributing pirated games. I would disagree about the situations being asymmetric. My own view is that copyright and "copyleft" (as it is sometimes called) are actually quite similar, and if you'll bare with me for a minute or two, I'll try to explain why. When you obtain and use a copy of a commercial program, you enter into an agreement with the copyright holder. The reason for this is that: 1/ The author(s) could have decided not to make the program available had they wished, in which case they would have been able to benefit from it, and you would not. 2/ However, you wish to have access to the program. 3/ Therefore a mutually benificial agreement is made where by you pay some money, and are allowed restricted access to the program. Basically, you have access to the program, but under certain situations (such as when you swap data with friends) you have to act as though you didn't have access to the program. ie. You may not distribute pirated software. For "copyleft", the reasoning is quite similar. When you obtain and use a copy of source code released under a GPL licence, you enter into a "copyleft" agreement. The reason being: 1/ The author(s) could have decided not to make the source available had they wished, in which case they would have been able to benefit from it, and you would not. 2/ However, you wish to have access to the source. 3/ Therefore a mutually benificial agreement is made where by you are allowed restricted access to the source. Basically, you have access to the source, but under certain situations (such as when you write a non GPL program) you have to act as though you didn't have access to the source. ie. You may not hijack open source software for use in you own non open source programs. Written like this, there are really only 2 differences between copyright and "copyleft". One is that people (generally) have to pay to obtain a program under a copyright licence. The other is that the rights that people forfit when entering into the agreements are different. People entering into a copyright licence forfit the right to give away the code, where as people entering into a "copyleft" licence forfit the right to use the code in a non open source program. I also question your statement that people do not suffer loss due to GPL licences being broken. (Ok, so what you actually say is "financial loss", but I would suggest that whether a loss is "financial" or not is quite beside the point. There are plenty of situations where people receive legal redress for a non financial loss. In the case of GPL licences being broken, the loss in question is loss of access to source.) Now, you might (quite rightly) ask in what sence can someone be said to have lost something that they never had (ie. how can access to source have been lost, when the source would never have even existed if it weren't for the person who is supposedly breaking the "copyleft" agreement.) However, this "victemless crime" argument is exactly the same one often used by software pirates. Let me expand on this. You say that copyright holders suffer financial loss when programs are pirated (a more pricise version of the common slogan "piracy is theft"), but consider this: say I have 1000 pirated games that retail for $100 each (which by the way I don't. this scenario is somewhat of an exageration perhaps, but not entirely implausible). If the statement is literally true that "piracy is theft" (and we consider "theft" here to be in the traditional sence) then, by copying these games, I have stolen $100,000 of money that would otherwise belong to the copyright holder(s). Now, this is clearly absurd. I never had $100,000 to spend on games (or anything else for that matter), so there is no way they would have got this money from me, and I can't possibly have cheated them of it. (Well, actually it IS literally true that "piracy is theft", at least by the legal defination of theft, but this definition is a somewhat contorted version of the traditional idea of theft.) None of this matters, of course. I have still broken a law when I pirate a game, and there's a very good reason for that. The copyright system (despite all it's flaws) is the best method we currently have for re-imbursing software developers for their efforts. Simply put, if the copyright system weren't in place, noone would pay for any software, and it wouldn't get written. (Of course this doesn't make as good a slogan as the less accurate "piracy is theft"). Getting back to the GPL side, yes, you are correct, strictly speaking, when you say that people do not directly suffer loss due to a GPL licence being broken (in the same way that piracy is a victemless crime). But if there was no "copyleft" licence, and people were free to use the source in their propritery systems, this could have just as a disastorious effect on the open source scene as the lack of a copyright law could have on the commercial software scene. Even if you don't agree with that, regardless of whether or not the situation is "asymmetric", it is still the law. And, as is the case for copyright, from a practical point of view, at the individual level, this more convincing than any moral argument. And finally, yes the dammage could be _partially_ mended by distributing the source after the event (there is still the setback in progress caused by the source not being made available sooner). But in the same way, the loss to commercial software vendors could be _partially_ mended by (as you say) undistributing the commercial software -- or to be more precise, by convincing the person/people who recieved pirated software from you to dispose of it. Ideally by replacing it with an equilivant, except better, open source program. ;-p P.S. I like open source, especially gcc and ghostscript. -- James Gasson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
