Paul Jarc wrote:
> It's the same situation as with, say, Emacs. The GPL doesn't give you
> permission to get a copy of Emacs; it only specifies what you can do
> once you have. The nearest I could find to explicit permission to
> download it is "By FTP we provide source code for all GNU software,
> free of charge." at
> <URL:http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html#HowToGetSoftware>, and
> that covers only the GNU site itself, not mirrors. I think
> rights.html is clearer.
For a lot of people, being able to obtain said software isn't the problem -- its
the right to use it in the ways they wish to do so in the long term. That's what
licenses are about. The fact that GNU software happens to be mirrored all over
the globe pretty much eliminates the obtaining factor ... especially since anyone
who has a copy has full rights to redistribution under the GPL.
--
Michael T. Babcock, C.T.O. FibreSpeed
http://www.fibrespeed.net/~mbabcock
