linux-kernel - RE: Possible gpl problem?

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Date:	Fri, 01 Sep 2006 22:23:56 -0700
From:	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>
To:	davids@...master.com
Cc:	"Linux-Kernel@...r. Kernel. Org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: RE: Possible gpl problem?

On Tue, 2006-08-29 at 06:57 -0700, David Schwartz wrote:
> 
>     b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
>     years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
>     cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
>     machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
>     distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
>     customarily used for software interchange; or,
> 
>         Which, you'll notice, says you must *accompany* the distribution with a
> written offer. There is no way this offer could be enforced by someone who
> did not possess it or a copy of it. How would you know who to contact, the
> amount to pay, and so on?
> 
>         So if you neither possess the binary nor a copy of an offer for the source,
> you are not entitled to it. At least, that's how I read this. 

That interpretation doesn't seem particularly consistent with the third
and final option as described in the next paragraph of the GPL:

    c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
    to distribute corresponding source code.  (This alternative is
    allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
    received the program in object code or executable form with such
    an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

Unless the party who made the offer of source code is required to extend
that offer to "any third party" (as in fact is explicitly stated in
subsection b), how can subsection c work?

It doesn't say "any third party who is in possession of a copy of the
binary and has a verbatim copy of the original written offer of source".
It just says "any third party".

-- 
dwmw2

-- 
VGER BF report: U 0.5
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