[UFO Chicago] GPL question

[Nate Riffe]

I just had a conversation with someone about what's specifically
required by the GPL and had the following thought....

If I were to obtain some GPL source code and build my own binaries
from it without making any modifications to the source code, and then
lose the source code (for example, by deleting it after I've built the
binaries and installed them), would the GPL require anyone to honor my
request for a copy of the source code from which my binaries were
built?  To look at it another way, are the Gentoo project, LFS, or
other end-user compiled projects or their principals under any legal
obligation to their users to continue operating and providing source
code to their users, except to the extent that the GPL requires them
to do so for e.g. the stage-1, -2, and -3 tarballs provided by the
Gentoo project for bootstrapping an installation?  I realize that this
is almost an entirely moot point, since most distributors of GPL
software will distribute its source code much more liberally than the
GPL actually requires.  And also, I am speculating here with the
caveat that I haven't actually read the GPL in a very long time and I
may be forgetting some detail that quashes this scenario.

-Nate

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pub  1024D/05A058E0 2002-03-07 Nate Riffe (06-Mar-2002) <inkblot at movealong.org>
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