Charging ($20) for GPL source?

[Iván Sánchez Ortega]

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El Miércoles 13 de Diciembre de 2006 10:21, MI escribió:
> But the GPL source cannot be downloaded. It can only be ordered on CD for a
> fee of $20. (see http://synology.com/enu/gpl/index.php).
>
> Is that OK, by the GPL? As I understood it, if the binary is offered for
> download, the source should be as well.

Yeah, it's OK, they can do it. Read paragraph 3.b of the GPL v2:



3. You may copy and distribute the Program [...] provided that you also do one 
of the following:

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give 
any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing 
source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding 
source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a 
medium customarily used for software interchange;



So, if buying a blank CD ("a medium customarily used for software 
interchange"), plus burning it with the source, plus sending a guy to your 
house with that CD in his pocket costs 20$, that is "the cost of physically 
performing source distribution". And it's covered by the GPL.

Just in case: IANAL.


Regards,
- -- 
- ----------------------------------
Iván Sánchez Ortega <ivansanchez at escomposlinux.org>

http://acm.asoc.fi.upm.es/~mr/ 
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