[UFO Chicago] GPL question

[Nate Riffe]

Jesse Becker said this (probably recently):
> --- Nate Riffe <inkblot at movealong.org> wrote:
> 
> > I just had a conversation with someone about what's
> > specifically
> > required by the GPL and had the following thought....
> 
> IANAL (thank $DIETY...)
> 
> I'll re-read the GPL tonight, and reply more fully, but I
> think that you are required only to provide the source if
> you are the an original author or author of a derviative
> work.

I thought that as the recipient of distributed software, my rights are
with the distributor and the distributor alone, regardless of who the
author or authors are.  If that's not the case then every time someone
distributes a GPL program, the author is burdened with an obligation,
even if the author is a third party to the transaction.

> For example, I write WhizBang 1.0 and release it under the
> GPL.  Debian decides to distribute it via their normal
> proceedure (but uses a version 2 years old).  You download
> the source independent from Debian, compile it, and delete
> the source code.  I do *not* think that you can demand that
> the Debian project give you the source.  HOWEVER, if they
> have also made their own changes to it, they must produce
> those on demand.

Obviously if I get the source code from someone other than Debian,
then Debian's not the distributor.  And if Debian happens to also
possess a modified copy of source code I got somewhere else, so what?
Unless Debian distributes software to me which is built from that
modified source they aren't obligated to me in any way.

This is a tangent, anyway.... my question was about the rights and
obligations between two parties under the GPL when the object being
distributed is source code, and not software.  To state the question
differently, is a distributor of GPL source code obligated under the
GPL to honor subsequent requests from direct recipients for the
*exact* *same* source code?

-Nate

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