Re: gEDA-user: Portable gEDA for Windows

["Windell H. Oskay" <windell@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sep 19, 2010, at 12:49 PM, DJ Delorie wrote:

>> Your troll-fu is weak.
> 
> Not trolling at all.  I've been discussing the GNU GPL officially,
> publically, and otherwise for the last 20 years or so - as part of
> DJGPP and Cygwin, as a Cygnus/Red Hat employee, and now as part of
> gEDA/PCB.  Some of the wording in COPYINGv2 exists because of my
> discussions with Stallman about how COPYINGv1 interacted badly with
> DJGPP (a GNU distribution), and I've had many talks with him and the
> FSF about the intricacies of the GPL and how it's interpreted. 

Okay. You can name-drop Stallman.  Your troll-fu is pretty strong actually.  I stand corrected.  

But citation still needed, or it *is* trolling.  You are expressing a possibly inflammatory opinion without evidence to back it up.  Doesn't that fit the definition?  (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet) )



On Sep 19, 2010, at 12:56 PM, DJ Delorie wrote:
>  The internet is not the only thing in the world.  Try asking a lawyer
> for advice instead.  I can only give you my opinion based on years of
> experience and personal discussions with the FSF.

You are expressing great confidence in an opinion that is-- as far as I can see --contrary to the way that this section is normally explained.  Do you really want to justify this both by saying that (1) I should submit to your authority since you discuss things like this with Stallman and (2)  it's just the internet, go ask a lawyer?  It sounds like you're actually unsure of your position too.  

The GPL Violations FAQ for vendors ( http://gpl-violations.org/faq/vendor-faq.html ) lists common mistakes in distributions, including "Only including a download link to the source code, rather than a written offer to ship the source code on a physical storage medium customarily used for information interchange."  I would think that if only including a written offer online were a problem, that would be listed here, as at least as large of a common mistake as not making the offer.

At gnu.org, on the page about checking for license violations ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html ) lists among things to check for in a potential license violation, "Is a written offer for source code included with a distribution of just binaries?"   No indication is made to distinguish between a downloaded offer/distribution and one obtained on physical media.

When the FSF checks for violations ( http://www.fsf.org/licensing/compliance ), they check the pages where software is distributed, and they also check "the surrounding web pages (to make sure that the source isn't distributed elsewhere on the site, and there's no written offer)."   Why would they say this if a written offer online were insufficient?


> If you can figure out a secure legally binding DATED way to make that
> offer online, and not get screwed by someone who edited the file to
> change the date ten years down the line, and have it all hold up in
> court, go for it.

If it comes down to someone suing you in court, then hopefully you can find several witnesses who can each attest that they used this version of the software back in 2010.  There's more to do in court than parse text files.  



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