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Re: GPL violation ?


At 02:08 PM 5/5/2004, you wrote:


>On Wed, 5 May 2004, Chris Herborth wrote:
>
>> Vince Hoffman wrote:
>>
>> > Checkpoint appear to be distributing cygwin1.dll (as well as gzip and
>> > gtar) without any obvious sources available. if fact of the 3 GPL utils
>> > its the only that doesnt have its own copying notice (they do at least
>> > provide a copy of the GPL.)
>>
>> Go read the GPL; you only need to provide sources to people who
>> _ask_for_them_.  These days, you could probably just refer them to a web
>> page or something.  Also, they have to make any _changes_ they've made to
>> the source available.
>Umm actualy
>a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source
>code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above
>on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
>
>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,
>
>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.)
>
>I saw none of the above, there was no source, there was no offer of
>source.
>This comes up on here every now and then and if i didnt think it was a
>possible issue i wouldnt have brought it up.
>Mind you IANAL so i could have bought this up for nothing, thus passing
>the buck to to other (hopefully) more knowledgeable people than me (ie the
>list)


Right.  I think Chris' summation is a little vague and incomplete.  I think
he was pointing out that a distributor of a GPL binary isn't required to 
insure that someone who downloads their binary also take the source.  This 
is optional.  However, I think this is a more pertinent response to this 
particular inquiry:

<http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AnonFTPAndSendSources>

If not and the distributor is choosing option 3b, then the written offer 
to provide the source is definitely missing.


> >
>> Including GPL'd code in a project as a shared library/DLL is just peachy;
>> GPL requires the end-user to be able to replace/upgrade the GPL'd hunk
>> without intervention.
>>
>> I went through all this nonsense (IMHO) when I built a binary Python
>> distribution for BeOS way back when... I wanted to include readline support,
>> but libreadline is GPL'd.
>>
>> > I havent contacted them about this as i could be in error and havent at
>> > the moment got time for an exaustive search of their site, but i thought
>> > i'd best let the list know.
>>
>> So contact their tech support and tell them you want the code for
>> cygwin1.dll, gzip, tar, plus any changes they've made to the code...
>>
>> Hope I wasn't sounding too snippy in this message, I've actually had to
>> explain this several times this week.  Must be related to the change in
>> seasons. ;-)
>
>No prob, as i said all i wanted to do was alert more knowledgeable people
>to a possiblilty.


I think it would be very appropriate if you were to contact their TS and
ask them to comply with the GPL (nicely of course!)  They aren't providing
source that is consistent with their binary distribution and they certainly
lack any offer to do so by any other means.  From my investigation, I 
completely agree with your assessment and would encourage you to follow-up
on this and report back.


--
Larry Hall                              http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
838 Washington Street                   (508) 893-9889 - FAX
Holliston, MA 01746                     


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