[UFO Chicago] GPL question

[Jesse Becker]

Bugger all, I had a long reply written, and Yahoo ate it.

The short answer, I think, to your question:  "Yes."

You wrote:

> 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? 

So, you download nmap 3.83 from Debian, compile it, then
nuke the original source code.  Can you then demand that
Gentoo/Slackware/Sun/FreeBSD provide you with the code for
nmap 3.83?

I think so, because GPL v2, Clause 3, paragraph 1, section
b reads:

    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,

Note the "any third party" bit.

This assumes I've interpreted your question correctly, and
I'm not sure I have (sorry).

--Jesse




Jesse Becker
GPG-fingerprint:  BD00 7AA4 4483 AFCC 82D0  2720 0083 0931 9A2B 06A2


		
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