🚀 go-pugleaf

> RMS: 
> I've heard that there are ftp sites distributing executables of
> versions of GCC, without full sources on line side by side with them.
> This isn't allowed under the GPL, and for good reason: ensuring users
> have easy access to the source code is one of the main aims of GNU.
> This is not a matter of deliberate wrongdoing; the source code for
> these versions is free and is circulating.

I would like to ask this policy be selectively relaxed.  Especially
now that UUNET has a policy against archiving binaries, a site
archiving them is doing a service for those who have that hardware and
want to save the time of configuration, compilation and installation.
For a small site, this cost in time can be high enough that it exceeds
the costs of similar shrink-wrapped software (I hasten to add that GNU
software almost always is of better quality, however, and is worth a
considerable amount of trouble.)

It may be such sites only have a limited amount of space for FTP
archives.  The requirement to store source, which in some cases is
quite large may limit the number of binaries they can carry,
potentially to zero.  In my case, which I suspect is typical, GNU
source is easy to obtain.

For some sites, with small disks, there may simply not be enough space
to download the full release.  Recently I had cause to integrate Emacs
and MH, both tens of megabytes in size once expanded.  Suppose I had
decided the best way to install was to download the latest GCC?  What
if there are problems and I have to turn on debugging?  This is larger
than the available disk space on many a site.  And the above
installation scenario is not a worst case.

Being denied access to binaries could make it impossible for many
sites to use GNU software, even in cases where they intend to download
source for much of the software they use.

Could I suggest that FSF license grant special permission for binary
archives, on a case by case basis?

By the way, I do not mean in the above to condone any violation of the
copyleft, even for a good cause, and even when inadvertent.  Until FSF
changes the policy stated by RMS, we should be bound by it.
-- 

Jeffrey Kegler, Independent UNIX Consultant, Algorists, Inc.
jeffrey@algor2.ALGORISTS.COM or uunet!algor2!jeffrey
137 E Fremont AVE #122, Sunnyvale CA 94087