Messages in this thread | | | From | David Woodhouse <> | Subject | Re: UnitedLinux violating GPL? | Date | Sat, 11 Jan 2003 19:27:59 +0000 |
| |
brand@jupiter.cs.uni-dortmund.de said: > Great! The "complete source code" for the kernel does include each > and every single patch applied since linux-0.0.1? Guess I'll have to > complain to a certain Torvalds then...
> 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.
"The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."
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.
-- dwmw2
- 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/
| |