[License-discuss] License-discuss Digest, Vol 78, Issue 4

[Bruce Perens]

This came up for me regarding an automobile media center containing Linux
and other Free Software. It seemed to me that this part would eventually be
traded by auto dismantlers, etc. My customer was a major auto part
manufacturer with deep pockets and potentially many automobile brands
integrating the part. I told them to fulfill the source code distribution
responsibility for all downstream parties, and to publish contact
information for their dealers, etc. to use if anyone asked about "source
code", and ultimately it's on their public web site. As far as I'm aware,
this is the default which very many manufacturers of retail items have
settled upon.

There are things you should consider before distributing the source code
with the product. Nobody keeps the box, the manual, and the included
software CD. These things go in landfills. If you convey the source code on
the products own storage media, about 1 in 10,000 users is going to
download it before erasing it, and you've made the product that much harder
to install for the other 9999 by adding an additional step of deleting the
source code. And then when some user figures out that they _do_ want the
source code, it's gone, and the manufacturer can say "I gave it to you
once" instead of providing it online.

The burden of providing source code on a web site is not a high one. It's
overstating to call it "unlimited liability", even if it may be a
never-ending task.

    Thanks

    Bruce

On Tue, Aug 7, 2018 at 3:53 PM, David Woolley <forums at david-woolley.me.uk>
wrote:

> On 07/08/18 21:53, Gustavo G. Mármol wrote:
>
>> That´s to say, regardless of the quantities of commercial resellers that
>> it could be in a "distribution binary product´s chain" the original
>> distributor/manufacturer would be the party that in practical terms would
>> provide "the source code offer" to the "final licensee or end users"
>> (despite the fact that the original distributor/manufacturer has no
>> contractual relationship with the commercial redistributor´s end
>> user/customer) and not the commercial redistributors (authorized by the
>> original distributor/manufacturer to distributes their products).
>>
>
> The whole public licence concept is based on the idea that rights can be
> given without a direct contract.
>
> The final distribution step can be non-commercial, leading to an unlimited
> liability on the last commercial distributor.
>
> As I remarked, up-thread, it is fairly clear that the intent is to
> strongly encourage commercial distributors to provide the source code at
> the same time as the binary. By doing that, they no longer have any
> obligation.
>
> I think the practice of making the offer at the top of distribution also
> applies to embedded linux systems in the UK, e.g. set top boxes. Although
> it may technically violate the licence, I think that licensors tend to take
> the view that it does still achieve the spirit of the licence, namely that
> end users are assured of being able to obtain a copy.
>
>
>
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>



-- 
Bruce Perens K6BP - CEO, Legal Engineering
Standards committee chair, license committee member, co-founder, Open
Source Initiative
President, Open Research Institute
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