GPL Terms (Was: AMIOPEN: etc....)

[Monty Harder]

8/22/01 4:08:55 PM, Mike Coleman <mkc at mathdogs.com> wrote:

>Yes, as far as I know, you only have to provide source to whomever you provide
>binaries to.  That source *does* have to be GPLed, though, which means that

  So what exactly constitutes "providing" a binary?  If I let you rlogin into my machine and you 
run a binary that I've 
compiled from modified GPL source, do I have to give you that source?  In an OS like DOS or 
Windows, the concept of being able 
to =execute= a file without being able to =read= it doesn't even exist.  But in *nix, --x--x--x 
means that I haven't 
"provided" a binary to anyone - only the =use= of that binary.  You can run it, and you can 
presumably read its output (or 
what's the point in running it) but you never loaded the binary on your machine.

  Did I distribute anything?

  If I seem to be beating a dead horse here, it's because the precise location of this line will be 
hugely important if MS 
tries to embrace and expend Linux via .NET....