GPL and storage requirements

[Matt Domsch]

On Sun, Mar 25, 2007 at 09:00:39AM -0400, Luis Villa wrote:
> 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.)

That's the problem.  We don't have infinite and indefinite storage,
but folks have wanted to honor the GPL 3(b).  If it's 3 years after
the last distribution of the binaries, then we should nuke the
binaries ASAP and leave the source.  The SRPMS dir for FC1 is ~3GB,
FC2 is ~3GB, FC3 is ~4.5GB, ...  However, if mirrors keep carrying
FC(early) after we've deleted it, and they're using 3(b) and passing
it on to us, don't we need to carry source until the last mirror
doesn't?



 
> Luis (glad GPL v3 clears this confusion up)