licencing problem with linux_base ports?

Trevor Johnson trevor at jpj.net
Thu Jul 3 04:19:05 PDT 2003


The distfiles for these are pre-compiled binaries, some of which are
licenced under the GNU GPL.  The license says we need to do one of:

    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.)

AFAIK we do none of these.  The first solutions that come to mind are to
mark these ports RESTRICTED or to arrange for the SRPM files (or their
contents) to be packaged along with the binaries (perhaps with a knob to
disable their packaging).  Neither of these seems very appealing.
-- 
Trevor Johnson


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