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On Tuesday, April 16, 2002, at 04:59 PM, Wayne wrote:
At 04:18 PM 4/16/2002 -0500, you wrote:
At the web site you quoted, it stated :"The freedom to improve the
program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole
community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a
precondition for this."
As long as this freedom is followed, I have no problem to anything
you like to say. For "Access to the source code", it is only expect
to pay the "distribution cost". Commercial development of free
software is wonderful, as long as the freedom to access source code
is not taking away from anyone.
It's not taken away. What you are asking for is not what the GPL grants.
If you have obtained GPL'd software, you are fully within your rights to
modify the source code and recompile it into your own binaries and use
those binaries yourself. If you decide you want to distribute these new
binaries to other people, you are fully within your rights to decide WHO
you distribute these binaries to. You also can decide how much you
charge people for these binaries. When you do this you are required to
do two things. 1. you must make it clear that the binaries were created
using source code licensed under the GPL. 2. if the people you
distributed binaries to, request the source code used to produce these
binaries, you have to give it to them at no charge, or at the cost of
the media used to distribute the source code to them (i.e. if you only
give them the source code on cd-rom, you can charge for the cost of the
media/shipping). That is it. I don't have to give random Joe Nutcrack a
copy of the source code because I sold binaries to Tom Goodman. The only
thing I have to do is give Tom Goodman the source code if he asks for
it. And even notice the "IF HE ASKS FOR IT."
You are missing the whole point of the GPL when you say that the free
means zero cost. That is not it at all, and was never the intention. I
think everyone is probably growing tired of this discussion. Maybe you
should contact RMS directly and have him clarify confusion.
Just because you do not understand what he is doing, it does not make
him confused.
--Paul Baker
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