Re: Results of "downloading compressed program images" request

["Robert J. Brown" <rj@eli.elilabs.com>]

>>>>> "Jim" == Jim Wilson <wilson@cygnus.com> writes:

    Jim> You can instead give a written offer as you mentioned, but if
    Jim> you do this, then the offer must remain valid for 3 years.
    Jim> In the example that you used, using a URL, the URL must
    Jim> remain valid for 3 years, or else you have violated the LGPL.
    Jim> If you release multiple products, using slightly different
    Jim> versions of the library, then you need a different URL for
    Jim> each library version, each of which must remain valid for 3
    Jim> years.  For a large company, with many products, this can
    Jim> easily cause unacceptable maintenance and liability problems.
    Jim> It is much easier to just include the unlinked code with the
    Jim> product, and this immediately satisfies the terms of the
    Jim> LGPL, and hence avoids the 3 year liability that comes with
    Jim> the written offer.

    Jim> The liability risks may not seem significant to you
    Jim> personally, but they can be for a large company.  Cygnus
    Jim> always includes sources with binary distributions that
    Jim> include GPL/LPGL code, precisely to avoid these liability
    Jim> problems.

I smell a business opportunity here!  Just as Cygnus (and others)
provide service for free software, a web server could be set up and
bonded and insured to vend LGPL sources and vendor supplied object
libraries for such products.  If you figure what it costs to provide a
floppy or even a CD with each instance of a product sold, and how
useless it would be to most customers, such a source and object
library repository could be the basis for a business.  Furthermore,
the manufacturer of the product would develop a mailing list of
customers who actually took the code, which might be useful to their
IP legal guys, or could be sould as a special interest mailing list to 
software and hardware tool vendors, etc.  The site would be funded on
a royalty basis based on sale of the product, so 3 years after the
last sale, the directories could be purged.

And you heard it first right here on cross-gcc, folks!

-- 
--------  "And there came a writing to him from Elijah"  [2Ch 21:12]  --------
Robert Jay Brown III rj@eli.elilabs.com  http://www.elilabs.com 1 847 705-0424
Elijah Laboratories Inc.;  37 South Greenwood Avenue;  Palatine, IL 60067-6328
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