[CLUE-Tech] GPL loopholes

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Tue, 2003-07-15 at 23:19, Angelo Bertolli wrote:
> I guess you're right to say I don't know for sure that they aren't 
> making their source code available to someone.  And I guess if I can't 
> find it somewhere online it probably wasn't good enough to duplicate by 
> anyone.

Or perhaps the people who've paid for the distro don't feel like passing
it on to the rest of the world when they've paid for it -- and paying
for the bandwidth to do so.

Don't forget, it costs money to provide downloads -- it's very gracious
of Red Hat and other Linux vendors (and their mirrors) to provide public
FTP when they don't have to. It also costs money to hire people to
package software, put out security updates and to customize all the
software and pull it together to put out a quality distro. It seems to
me that all too many people interpret Linux and GPL'ed software as a
free ride and nothing more. 

If you want to find out if they're upholding the terms of the GPL, buy a
copy and ask for the source, or e-mail someone who has bought or
received the distro and ask them.

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net