Re: blatant GPL violation of ext2 and reiserfs filesystem drivers

Jamie Lokier
2006-01-04T15:58:09Z

> Yes. You're not a lawyer. Stop wasting everybody's time by trying to
> interpret a legal document.

Matthew, thanks for your abuse. It was not necessary.

As a programmer, it is essential that I, like others, have a
reasonable understanding of the GPL. It is not written only for
lawyers. I did not nitpick something esoteric; I nitpicked something
which is important to real people who deal in GPL software which is
not available to the public.

> > That sentence is not clear to me. Are you're saying that it was
> > possible to download the object code without source code, or that
> > _only_ the object code was available?
>
> Why don't you go and look instead of quibbling in the abstract?
> The binary is *currently* available, and no source code is.

Because this thread kept using the past tense to say what crossmeta
_have_ done. As it's still available, why mention 'third parties'?
They're irrelevant; the violation is quite straightforward.

> > No. They must provide the 'written offer' to the person downloading
> > the binary, if they did not make available source code to that person.
>
> Why are you bothering to nitpick Harald?

Because he wrote something that, _without context_, is a technical
mistake that people sometimes make when talking about the GPL. Like
you, I consider it my duty to ensure the GPL is upheld, and in the
proper way. I appreciate now that Harald understands it well and his
statement was a simplification; others, may not. I've been writing
GPL software for 15 years; it's not a new thing to me.

Please understand that I didn't receive these messages through a
legal-experts list, where of course I would be far more cautious to
comment; I received them on a software development list.

> Do you not realise he understands the GPL better than you do, having
> agreed over 30 settlements against people violating it? He's even
> got courts to grant injunctions!

That's correct. I did not realise that. That's great! But I haven't
known Harald's name before; and also did not know this thread had
reached the point of someone actually handling the legal end.

-- Jamie (goodbye)