Re: Emacs 23.4 Updated Windows Binaries published

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Lennart Borgman writes:

 > Just what I said above. But the answer from Richard that Paul just
 > pointed to (http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=10656#23) is
 > very clear.

Clear as mud.  What you are missing is that Richard responded to a
fragment of Paul's post which was arguably misleading.  Paul wrote
"ship executables", but Richard's reply does *not* apply to "shipping"
via the Internet.  See below.

 > In fact I think it confirm that sources can be elsewhere.

That's wishful thinking, at best.

No, in this case, where we are talking about distributing via an
Internet server, the sources have to be in the same place as the
object.  The GPL, section 6(d), is crystal clear on that point.  There
are three exceptions: 6(b), 6(c), and 6(e).  None applies to the
situation we are discussing.  6(b) requires that you *provide physical
media* (eg, a CD-ROM) plus a *written guarantee* that the sources
exist in a particular place; Emacs is clearly not going to restrict
itself to that.  Section 6(c) does not apply to mass distribution; it
specifically says "only occasionally" (eg, making a copy of Emacs as a
birthday present for your sister).  Further, to invoke 6(c) you must
have received your copy under 6(b), which certainly is not the case
for Emacs and GnuTLS.  6(e) requires use of a peer-to-peer protocol,
which is obviously unsuitable as the primary source of a mass
distribution of Emacs.

 > There could be a DOI-like pointer for exactly those sources used.

C'mon, Lennart, I wasn't born yesterday.  Of course I figured that out
already.  That's so obvious even a U.S. Patent Office examiner would
refuse to pass it.

You are *still* missing the point.  Did you miss Eli's recent post
asking somebody to remove version numbers of 3rd party libraries used
by the Windows binary distribution?  Updating that DOI is a PITA and
mistake-prone, and it's a nasty mistake to make because *any small
mistake at all* because it puts you in technical violation of your
license (but only if you distribute binaries only; if you distribute
the source too, typos in the README are merely typos).  Probably
nobody will sue you, just ask you to fix it, but you will definitely
get a rep as one who disrespects licenses.

 > An easier way is perhaps to clone the sources to a new place in the
 > repository (or another repository).

Technically easier, yes; GPL-compliant, arguably not.  Clause 6(d)
requires "equivalent copying services"; if the object is in a tarball,
one could argue that requiring tarball users to install Bazaar is not
equivalent.  In practice, the FSF might not go after somebody who did
that, as clearly the "preferred form of source for development" is a
clone of the DVCS repo.  On the other hand, they might very well ask
you to provide the tarball, too.  And if the VCS were BitKeeper or
Visual Source Safe, they probably *would* go after you.