Re: [h-e-w] Problem with fresh emacsw32 install

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:02:56 -0000
> From: "Phil Betts" <address@hidden>
> 
> Throughout this thread, you have been confusing "necessary" with 
> "desirable".  Lennart is, and as far as I can tell always was, fully
> compliant with the GPL (the FAQ is NOT part of the GPL and has 
> absolutely no legal standing).

Others have pointed out, with references to FSF material, that this
compliance is questionable at best.  And I have enough experience
talking to RMS about these matters to be quite sure that he (RMS) will
not be happy, to say the least, about the current state of events.

> There is nothing in the GPL that says that links to the source must be
> in the same place as links to the binaries.

Again, others have pointed out that this is false.

> * The source IS equally accessible (which is what the GPL requires).
>   I.e. anyone who can access the binaries can also access the source,
>   using exactly the same software, hardware, protocols etc.

Not in practice.  While a good lawyer (which I am not) could somehow
be able to plant doubt in a sympathetic jury, I think it should be
clear to any reasonable reader of the GPL that no one should be
required to invest the kind of effort I found necessary to find the
sources.  ``Freely available'' does not in my book mean ``look for it
in a maze of endless menus whose titles are utterly undescriptive''.

> Please stop suggesting that Lennart is in breach of the GPL, just 
> because he's not gone out of his way to make your life easy.  Lennart 
> is devoting a significant amount of his own time to help the community 
> and does not deserve to be trolled in this way.

I'm sorry that my messages are somehow perceived as trolling.  Perhaps
that's because English is not my first language.

As for devoting significant amounts of time to help the community, you
can find in the Emacs ChangeLogs that I'm guilty of that as well.

> If it were up to me, the source corresponding to a binary release would
> be in a single zip/tarball, named the same as the binary, but with "src"
> in the name.  It would be stored in the same directory as the binary 
> and the page linking to the binary package would also link to the source
> package.

That'd be fine with me.

> However, none of this is actually required according to the letter
> of the GPL.

I think in practice, it is.