GPL and storage requirements

[Luis Villa]

On 3/25/07, Alexandre Oliva <aoliva at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Mar 24, 2007, "Luis Villa" <luis at tieguy.org> wrote:
>
> > I believe non-commercial mirrors are not required to keep source. They
> > need only "accompany  [the Program] with the information [they]
> > received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code."
> > (Sec. 3(c)).
>
> IANAL,

I'm not either, I just go to law school, *HUGE DIFFERENCE*. To remind
everyone, you should run this by a real lawyer :)

> but Fedora distributes code under 3(a) (sources along with
> binaries), not 3(b), so third-parties don't get to use 3(c), they must
> use either 3(a) or 3(b).

This is why I said later that Fedora should distribute sources under
3(b), not 3(a). (Though the two aren't mutually exclusive; it'd be
more like '3(a) plus 3(b) offer.')

> Using 3(a) means Fedora can blow away anything it carries any time it
> wants, no further requirements.
>
> Using 3(b) would mean we'd have to keep, at least internally, the
> corresponding sources of GPLed and LGPLed code in every binary
> released package, for at least 3 years after we take it out of the
> download site, just in case someone asks us for it.  AFAIK, mirrors
> who carry our binaries without sources enter precisely this kind of
> obligation.

No, that is what 3(c) is for. Only Fedora carries the long-term
storage requirements in that case. (And as far as I can see, if you're
still distributing FC1, Fedora has no problem with nearly indefinite
storage.)

Luis (glad GPL v3 clears this confusion up)