Re: Distribution

[Sergei Steshenko <sergstesh yahoo com>]

--- On Wed, 12/9/09, Martin Dolezal <tvtv centrum cz> wrote:

> From: Martin Dolezal <tvtv centrum cz>
> Subject: Distribution
> To: gtk-list gnome org
> Date: Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 12:35 AM
> Hi, beginner question, 
> I am starting to play with GTK, I am reading about
> licensing and I still
> don't get it... Specially I am confused with this
> paragraph: "You are
> welcome to redistribute GTK+ binaries, including
> applications that
> bundle them, on other web sites, CD-ROM, and other media.
> You don't have
> to ask for permission. That's one of the points of Free
> Software. One
> important thing that the GNU licenses require is that you
> must also
> redistribute the source code. This usually means at least
> the gettext,
> GLib, GTK+, Pango and Atk sources."
> 
> So what do I want to do is: I build a program, let's say
> Windows one -
> program.exe. I want to offer it as free software
> downloadable from my
> site but I don't want to distribute my source code (if this
> is a big
> problem, I can, but I would rather keep it).
> Other people need gtk DLL files to run my application. So
> in the ZIP
> file that I will offer there will be my program.exe and
> these DLLs...
> libgtk-win32-2.0.0.dll, libcairo-2.dll, etc.
> This is OK i hope, isn't it? Do I need to distribute
> something more?
> Source code of these GTK libraries? Even if I haven't
> modify them? Or is
> this completely wrong?
> 
> Thanks,
> Martin
> 
> 

You have to distribute libraries source code if you are asked to do so by
somebody - you do not have to distribute the source code along with the
executable.

What is typically done is that library source code is made available as a
_separate_ download from _your_ site.

I think that (L)GPL does not actually force you to make source code
downloadable from your site, I think there is a provision to make it
available through Email, for example.

The main point is that if someone asks you for the libraries source code,
you should make it available from _your_ resources, i.e. just a download
link to somebody else's site is not enough  - IIRC.

Regards,
  Sergei.