Re: Distribution

[Tor Lillqvist <tml iki fi>]

Note that replies you get on this list is not real legal advice of
course. If you really want that, contact a lawyer.

> I want to offer it as free software downloadable from my
> site but I don't want to distribute my source code

Here you are confusing the term "free" as used in normal talk meaning
"no cost" with "free" as in "Free Speech" and "Free Software". "Free
Software is an older and stronger variant of the newer and more
generic term "Open Source". It has little to do with how much
something costs.

The GTK+ stack is Free Software. It also happens to cost nothing, in
most ways one can acquire it, but that is irrelevant. Your software
apparently is not Free Software. That is not a problem, you can still
use dynamically linked (DLL) LGPL libraries just fine.

> You have to distribute libraries source code if you are asked to do so by somebody

And not just "somebody", but somebody who has acquired the
corresponding binaries. (Of course, that effectively means "anybody"
anyway, as anybody you directly give LGPL binaries to has the right to
give them to anybody else.)

Note that this offer needs to be valid only for a relatively limited
time, three years.

> you do not have to distribute the source code along with the executable.

No, but it certainly can be much more convenient to do that, than to
keep archives and keep track of exactly what source code versions
correspond to exactly what versions of LGPL library binaries you ship.

> 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.

Sure. Or physical media. The word "download" doesn't occur in the LGPLv2.

> 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

Exactly.

Note that there is no need to provide "technical support" though, as
long as you distribute the source code in a reasonable format, in the
same format as you or whoever built the library binaries used it, with
the same configury and makefilery etc, tf somebody who gets library
source code from you then has no clue how to actually do some
modification and recompile them (remember, that is the whole point in
this all, the freedom to modify software one uses), you don't need to
provide step-by-step instructions to them. (This is not meant as a
hint to do some intentional obfuscation, that is not allowed.)

--tml