Re: [Trisquel-users] About Raling Linux Drivers and Trisquel 5.5

[onpon4]

The copyright holder doesn't have to distribute the work under the terms of  
the license because he/she/it already has complete permission to distribute  
it in any way he/she/it wants under copyright.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure, but I think that if software is distributed  
under the GPL without source code ever being provided, it is not possible for  
anyone else to redistribute it at all under those terms, because as you  
mention, distributing under the terms of the GPL requires either including  
the source code or providing it on request. If that's true, releasing  
something under the GPL, but not ever releasing the source, is no different  
from using no license at all in practice. Whether or not this is the case  
depends on whether the copyright holder's refusal to provide the source code  
so that you can comply with the license prevents them from successfully suing  
you.