David Turner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Fri, 2003-03-07 at 14:03, Mark Rafn wrote: > > I'd far rather live with the loophole and accept that some people will > > make money by running a program with unpublished changes. > > Of course, the issue is not money. The idea is that users of a program > ought to be able to get the source code for that program. Users these > days often use a program without ever having recieved a copy of it. > Nobody thought of this in 1991. But times are changing.
By your usage: Right now I'm a "user" of the code on the router between me and you. I also am a user of the code my bank uses to track my balance. I'm a "user" of the code that the US Congress uses to track legislation for my congressman. I'm a user of the code that controls the lights in the Mummenschantz production I'm seeing tonight. I think this is a crazy usage. Nor was the GPL ever about giving the *users* the source code! Under the GPL I can run a system, and I am under no obligation to make the source code available to the users as long as I am not *distributing* the code to them, which in general, I am not. Indeed, *right now*, I am running such a system, and since I have not downloaded most of the source packages, I am not providing my users the source. And this is just fine, and as it should be, because the GPL says that if you *get a copy* of the program, then you have the right to the source, not that if you *use* a program, you somehow acquire the right to the source. Thomas
