I don't get it [LWN.net]

I don't get it

Posted Mar 20, 2008 0:31 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
In reply to: I don't get it by pr1268
Parent article: Fedora's advice on GPL compliance

1) I don't see the relevance of a purchase of a ancient version of Red Hat Linux here but yes,
whoever you made the purchase from has to provide you the source code if a copy was not given
at the time of purchase. 

2) Fedora is pretty consistent in providing source code. In fact, Fedora does not even have a
non-free repository. You can find the complete source code in all complete Fedora mirrors and
the mirror list is indeed provided from the download page. You don't get direct links since
that page is already pretty crowded and people who want source code can easily find it. Sure,
it a couple more clicks but not a big deal and is a different ball game from distribution of
source code in media. 

3)The number of times anybody would ask for source code makes it cheaper to provide a copy on
demand compared to provide source code every single time. 

4)Fedora has about 10,000 packages in the repository currently and the complete binaries and
source code won't fit into a single DVD. Not even just the binaries would fit into a single
DVD. This really doesnt have much to do with bloat. Consider the case of a Fedora Live CD
which is probably the more popular means of getting Fedora in events compared to regular DVD's
and you can see why it wouldn't be possible to fit both binaries and source in a single disk.

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Is this a joke?

Posted Mar 21, 2008 9:17 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Consider the case of a Fedora Live CD which is probably the more popular means of getting Fedora in events compared to regular DVD's and you can see why it wouldn't be possible to fit both binaries and source in a single disk.

We are talking about DVD-ROM's here, not DVD-R's, right? 8.9GB DVD-ROM is marginally more expensive then 4.7GB DVD-ROM, so there are plenty of space to put sources. Situation with DVD-R is totally different: dual-layer DVD-R indeed are 10 times more expensive to produce then single-layer DVD-R. But with DVD-ROM's it's not the same story: you only need two stamps instead of one and marginal cost is the same in both cases! So if Fedora is distribution with less-then-4GB public DVD ISO's (and they were doing this last time I've checked) they can easily fit sources to 8.9GB DVD-ROM!

Is this a joke?

Posted Mar 22, 2008 20:25 UTC (Sat) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

There is a significant difference between the cost of CD vs DVD media and especially CD vs DVD
writers in many regions. Read what you are replying to more carefully. I was referring to
"Live CD" and not DVD. There is no way to fit complete binaries and sources into a single live
cd.