Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: UnitedLinux violating GPL? | Date | Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:23:50 +0100 | From | Horst von Brand <> |
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David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org> said: > brand@jupiter.cs.uni-dortmund.de said:
[...]
> > Don't be silly. "Complete source code" means the source needed to > > rebuild the binary, nothing more. If that is a mangled version derived > > from some other source, so be it. You are explicitly allowed to > > distribute changed versions, but only under GPL. [IANAL etc, so...]
> I disagree. A preprocessed source file with all the variables renamed to > random strings would suffice to rebuild the binary, and is obviously not > acceptable -- being able to rebuild the binary is not the only criterion.
That isn't "source" in my book.
> "The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work > for making modifications to it."
Right. And you can take the kernel-source RPM, and update drivers &c just as you would on the original source + patchsets
> Note that the GPL doesn't say you have to give it in the preferred form for > _building_ it, but the preferred form for _modifying_ it.
> In the opinion of many devlopers, the preferred form of the Linux kernel for > maintaining it is a set of individual patches against the closest > 'official' release, and not a tarball containing already-modified code.
That is exactly that: An opinion (or preference) of many (or so you do think). Not legally binding, AFAIKS... -- Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org Departamento de Informatica Fono: +56 32 654431 Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria +56 32 654239 Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile Fax: +56 32 797513 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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