RE: Licensing/Installer Questions

["Dave Korn" <dave.korn@artimi.com>]

On 03 March 2006 12:01, Michael Banks wrote:

> If we have a link on our website to download our product, which contains a
> few open-source cygwin tools, then is it OK to have a separate link to
> download the sources of those tools, just to try and save some bandwidth?
> Would it be OK to have text on the website like "Our product uses a number
> of open-source tools. To comply with the licesing for these tools, we are
> required to provide the source code for them. The source code is available
> upon request, so please contact us at yyy@zzz.com if interested."      

  GPL clause 3 applies to your desire to redistribute binaries of the GPL'd
cygwin tools.  It says:-

----------------------------
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:

    a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source
code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a
medium customarily used for software interchange; or, 

    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, 

    c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to
distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for
noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code
or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.) 

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making
modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all
the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface
definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and
installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source
code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in
either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and
so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that
component itself accompanies the executable.

If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to
copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the
source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code,
even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the
object code. 
=======================================================================

  Distributing the sources by download as well as distributing the binaries by
download where they're both available from side-by-side download links would
count as "accompanying" under clause a), so that would be OK.  In that case,
the last clause says that as long as the sources are available from the same
server, it doesn't matter if they're in a separate tarball/zipfile/whatever.

  However, as to saying "Contact us at xxx@yyy", I'm not quite so sure.  You
would be trying to comply with clause b) there, but I don't know if that
counts as a "written" offer, and I don't know if it would comply with the need
for transferability of the written offer.  Further, the written offer entitles
the holder/recipient of the offer to a copy of the sources "on a medium"; that
means you can't offer an email or ftp download to someone to satisfy the offer
EVEN IF the original binary was downloaded, you are obliged to physically mail
them a CD-ROM or whatever.  It would really be far simpler to leave the
sources on the same server along with the binaries.

    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....