UnitedLinux "certified binaries" will not to be freely available

[bogstad at pobox.com (Bill Bogstad)]

Frank wrote:
>Actually I think he's safe in either case:  The key word in that section is
>"distribute", the GPL doesn't say you have to distribute to everyone who
>asks for it.  It says you have to provide the source to anyone you
>distribute to.  This is a very important, if hard to understand, difference.
>To put it another way: I make a great CD burning program of Linux that uses
>a GPL'ed library.  Also, I descide to sell the pre-compiled binaries of the
>program.  As long as I provide the source along with the binary I am in
>complete GPL compliance.

You are in compliance, if you place no restrictions on what the
recipient can do with the GPLed software other then those restrictions
in clause 6 of the GPL that I quote below.  I agree that Caldera
doesn't have to make their binaries available for ftp (or even source
for that matter as long as they include the source with the binaries).
The issue is whether Caldera is going to try to stop me from making
copies of GPLed binaries that are on the CD that I just bought at
BestBuy.  As I said in my orginal note, some of the bits on that CD
are likely to have orginated totally at Caldera or one of the other
UnitedLinux partners and they can certainly control distribution of
those bits. 

How much use the GPLed bits from the UL CD would be without the
proprietary bits is another question.  Depending, however, on how
tightly coupled the proprietary and GPLed bits are; they could run
afoul of claims that the bits they wrote are just part of a larger
derived work which is covered under the GPL.  This is the an area
where RMS has in the past made claims about the effects of the GPL
based on what is/isn't derived software which are hard to swallow.

			     Bill Bogstad
			     bogstad at pobox.com