4 Mar
2011
4 Mar
'11
11:08 a.m.
It was thus said that the Great Tony Duell once stated:
Actually, one can release a binary-only program under the GPL. The
relevant portion of the GPL for this is:
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
...
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.)
So, legally obtain the program, then ask for the source code.
Yes, agreed. But I think there;s a big difference between a binary-only
distribution of a program and a program which is only distributed as a
bianry.
Now, IANAL, but I take that to mean that it's quite legal for me to (say)
give you a disk with a GCC binary on it for a particular system (GCC being
a GPL'ed program, of coruse) provided I either offer you the source for
trh ecost of copying it, or tell you where to get it from
This is met in spirit, and I suspect in letter, by web siters that have
one link to download a pre-configured program to run on Windows, say, and
a separate link to donwload the source code for it.
However, in the case of this HP9000/200 emualtor, the soruce code is not
yet available to download. I happen to believe the author is honest, and
that he will release the source code when he's tidied it up, but right
now I can get the binary but not the soruce.
Of course I sincerely hope nothing like this happens, but I can think of
many reasons why the author would be unable to relase the souce code.
So at this point, I do fail to see how the program, binary only, no
source avaialble, can be released under the GPL. Once the source is
available, of course it can be/
-tony
If you look closely when 'RUNNING' the program, you will see a GPL notice ....
So you're saying I have to download a binary-only program and run it on a
machine I don't own under an OS I don't have a license for to see this?
In any case. I don't believe a binary-only program can be released under
the GPL, certainly not under the GPL that I am familiar with.