🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ut5e6INNg6r@early-bird.think.com> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:

|   In article <3870@balrog.ctron.com> smith@ctron.com writes:
|   >Since the FSF *does* have sites for the latest stuff, I presume therefore
|   >that the requirement is still met if the binary is kept completely up-to-date
|   >with respect to FSF offerings and references those?
|
|   I don't think so.  The GPL says that if you provide binary-only
|   distribution, you must offer to make the corresponding source available for
|   at least three years.  Providing a pointer to the latest source, instead of
|   the source to the version that someone downloaded a year ago, is not
|   equivalent.  The FSF doesn't have to make old versions available because
|   they don't do binary distributions.
---
This is really awful.  It means that a site which kept a continuously
up-to-date binary distribution available would have to be able to
provide a source copy of every version it ever posted.  A three year
window could reuqire you to make 50 versions of emacs available and
correspondingly awful numbers of versions of gcc or whatever.

This is really counterproductive -- the goal should be to encourage
redistributors to make the latest versions available as soon as
possible.  If this is interpreted strictly it would motivate
redistributors to only post new versions occasionally, to avoid having
to keep old versions available.

For tape distributions this is no big deal -- you normally wouldn't make
every version available, anyway.  For FTP distribution it is just
unworkable.
--
scott preece
motorola/mcg urbana design center	1101 e. university, urbana, il   61801
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