Source Distribution and the GNU GPL (NewsForge)

Posted Jul 17, 2006 23:32 UTC (Mon) by xtifr (guest, #143)
In reply to: Source Distribution and the GNU GPL (NewsForge) by vondo
Parent article: Source Distribution and the GNU GPL (NewsForge)

> What did not sound reasonable was his suggestion at the beginning of the
> article that all binary CDs also come with source CDs by default.

That's not a change, though. That's the way it is now, and will be unchanged in GPLv3. And he's talking about the convenience of the distributor here. It is frequently more convenient for the distributor to provide those source discs up-front than to make a three-year offer.

It might have been nice if the GPLv3 had extended the "equivalent access" clause to include CD distribution, so that CD vendors didn't _have_ to provide the source as long as they _offered_ it for no more than than a nominal charge (which is basically how it works for FTP vendors). But as it is, this aspect of the GPL merely remains unchanged, and if you don't like it, you should have started complaining years ago! ;)

p.s. for newer versions, if your bandwidth is so limited that you want a CD in the first place, you might want to look into getting source patches. Then those source CDs will be useful to you _and_ you'll still have up-to-date code!