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ajross • yesterday at 11:26 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

People are getting way too bent out of shape over that "medium customarily used for software interchange" bit. It doesn't mean github. It doesn't mean "the medium I use most commonly".

Basically, if you think courts are going to be OK with interpreting "download from this FTP site" as acceptable but "download the same tarball from Drive" as unacceptable, you're fooling yourself.

Drive is fine, given the spirit of the license. It's merely inconvenient.

Replies

simoncion • today at 12:04 AM

> People are getting way too bent out of shape...

I hope you're not including me in "people". Remember that I said:

  There might be some merit to a claim that Google Drive isn't a medium customarily used for software distribution these days, but ...  I'm skeptical that it's a violation of the letter of the GPL.
I was quoting the text of the GPL to point out to jraph that it absolutely does restrict how source code is distributed to ensure that licensees are obligated to distribute in a format that's actually useful to the typical recipient, rather than permitting a licensee to ship a couple-hundred pounds of printouts and still be in compliance with the license.