Thursday, August 28, 2008
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/compliance-guide.html
The Software Freedom Law Centre has put out a guide that tells software vendors how to make sure they're complying with the GPL (see link, above). It's not hard to comply, but there are some good tips in there.
An example is to make sure you don't have a build guru - someone without whom your organisation/team could not build your software. Because if you couldn't build your software without your build guru, then people you distribute it to don't have much of a chance.
It also talks about what your options actually are in terms of basic compliance. So for example one thing I didn't know is that in GPL v3, they made it much more explicit how you can distribute source code, and that technologies such as the Web or Bit Torrents are acceptible. For example, peer-to-peer distribution of source code is acceptible as long as that is the medium being used to distribute the (built) software.
There's more good stuff in there, and even though I'm no Free Software vendor, it's an interesting read just from the perspective of an insight into how Free Sofrware compliance really works.
(Hat tip: Roger Clarke)
The Software Freedom Law Centre has put out a guide that tells software vendors how to make sure they're complying with the GPL (see link, above). It's not hard to comply, but there are some good tips in there.
An example is to make sure you don't have a build guru - someone without whom your organisation/team could not build your software. Because if you couldn't build your software without your build guru, then people you distribute it to don't have much of a chance.
It also talks about what your options actually are in terms of basic compliance. So for example one thing I didn't know is that in GPL v3, they made it much more explicit how you can distribute source code, and that technologies such as the Web or Bit Torrents are acceptible. For example, peer-to-peer distribution of source code is acceptible as long as that is the medium being used to distribute the (built) software.
There's more good stuff in there, and even though I'm no Free Software vendor, it's an interesting read just from the perspective of an insight into how Free Sofrware compliance really works.
(Hat tip: Roger Clarke)
Labels: ben, compliance, Dr Roger Clarke, free software, gpl
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