delaying source release... gpl conform?

[Armijn Hemel]

hi,

> >>if a company distributing GPL-derived embedded products, where they stated 
> >>publicly that they use GPL software and will release the source in some 
> >>near future time, since they have "some copyright problems" with some of 
> >>their "other binaries".
> >>They even provide an open forum to support their firmware, and keep on 
> >>promising on the forum that they will release the source asap (which is 
> >>already months ago now).
> >>
> >>Is this "conform" to GPL?
> > 
> > Well, the answer is clear: it's not.
> 
> What's your opinion based upon?
> 
> Let's cite the GPL:
> 
> 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under
> Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections
> 1 and 2 above 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; or,
> 
> If you provide a "written offer" with your distribution the GPL says
> that you should ship the source code when asked for it; it doesn't
> specify that you should do it overnight. I think that it would be very
> reasonable to allow a company to collect requests and ship once a week.
> Dragging the process more than a month, smells like GPL abuse to me.

A company should be compliant the minute they start shipping the product,
it's as simple as that. Please note I (nor the original poster) said
anything about shipping anything overnight.

I have asked him to file a report in our request tracker.

armijn

-- 
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  armijn at uulug.nl | http://www.uulug.nl/ | UULug: Utrecht Linux Users Group
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