On 4/7/2011 5:52 PM, Scott Silva wrote:
> on 4/7/2011 2:28 PM Les Mikesell spake the following:
>> On 4/7/2011 3:55 PM, R P Herrold wrote:
>>> On Thu, 7 Apr 2011, Les Mikesell wrote:
>>>
>>>> rebuilding RHEL src rpms under RHEL, it should be made
>>>> public and either fixed or acknowleged as the intended
>>>> outcome.
>>>
>>> Off topic here as to what RHEL and its vendor should or should
>>> not do, Les.
>>
>> OK, I'll rephrase. What they do do should be made public.
>>
>>> And 'self-hosting' has NEVER been a goal of the upstream's
>>> full product line [and indeed cannot be, as parts of it
>>> include binary blobs for which sources are not released]
>>
>> And yet, there are probably people who believe that RH releases sources
>> that can be rebuilt to usable binaries and make decisions based on that.
>>
> The GPL says they must release source. It doesn't say they have to also
> release any magic spells they use to compile it.
If the source code won't build the binary they release, have they really
released the matching source? GPL requirements always apply to a 'work
as a whole'. Of course not everything is under GPL, and it might not
apply to things like using a specially tweaked compiler so no one else
could duplicate your results, but if there are static libs and similar
embedded components involved, any GPL-covered package should have all of
the matching source available.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com