[tex-live] Ruby interpreter for Windows in the TeXLive distribution?

[David Kastrup]

karl at freefriends.org (Karl Berry) writes:

>     > i'd expect that nowadsys, with the availability of networks references 
>     > to locations would be enough; i wonder if such things will evolve to 
>     > more practical ones some day
>
> Well, since day 1, the GPL has always had the possibility of "offering"
> to distribute the sources in lieu of actually distributing them.  The
> exact method is not specified.  A url seems fine to me as one
> possibility.

Uh what?

  3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

    a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
    source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
    1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

    b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
    years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
    cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
    machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
    distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
    customarily used for software interchange; or,

    c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
    to distribute corresponding source code.  (This alternative is
    allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
    received the program in object code or executable form with such
    an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

"On a medium customarily used for software interchange".  A URL is not
such a medium.  And calling an ftp or http server a medium might be a
bit of a stretch.

Anyway, any offer under 3b has to be a _written_ offer.  That's not
something we can do for a CD image.

> It is much better and simpler to actually distribute the sources in the
> first place, and that is what we do, and that is what I think we should
> continue to do.

Agreed.  A duty to be three years around and send stuff "at cost" is
just impractical.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum