Re: Microsoft needs a help strategy

[Hyman Rosen]

ZnU wrote:
> If we're talking about Party A redistributing Party B's unmodified GPL'd 
> work without making the source available, this may be true. But this is 
> trivial, since the source is available to anyone who wants it in this 
> instance from Party B. If a court found against the GPL in a case along 
> these lines, nothing substantial would change.

Untrue. The FSF very clearly spells out its philosophy. It believes
that it is an affirmative benefit for users to have the four freedoms,
that it is harmful to users to deny them any of those freedoms, and in
using the GPL, it acts for the benefit of those users and to prevent
them from being harmed by being denied their freedoms or not being
informed about them when they have those rights. To the extent that
party B fails to honor the terms of the GPL, the FSF as copyright
holder believes that harm is being caused to B's users.

The simplest thing you're missing in "just get it from A" is that
without proper compliance with the GPL from B, users will not know
what rights they have to the software they receive, or its provenance,
or where to obtain its source.