Can we?

[Mark Doliner]

On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 2:08 PM, David
Woolley<forums at david-woolley.me.uk> wrote:
> Mark Doliner wrote:
>
>>
>> Yeah that should be totally fine.  Pidgin is licensed under the GPL,
>> and is therefore free to distribute.  If you make any modifications
>> you're obligated to offer the source code to those modifications to
>> anyone who you've offered the binary.
>
> I don't believe that they have to modify the code to come under that
> obligation.  Section 3 applies to executables distributed under both section
> 1 and section 2.

I feel like this part of the GPL is a little vague.  Relevant excerpt
from GPLv3, section 6d:

You are allowed to distribute the binary provided you "offer
equivalent access to the Corresponding Source in the same way through
the same place at no further charge. ... If the place to copy the
object code is a network server, the Corresponding Source may be on a
different server (operated by you or a third party) that supports
equivalent copying facilities, provided you maintain clear directions
next to the object code saying where to find the Corresponding Source.
Regardless of what server hosts the Corresponding Source, you remain
obligated to ensure that it is available for as long as needed to
satisfy these requirements."

My interpretation is that it's fine for them to distribute an
unmodified binary as long as they tell people "you can get the source
from http://pidgin.im/"  And I'm personally ok with that.

-Mark