GPL Compliance – Distributing Applications in Debian VM Images

gpllinuxvirtual machine

I have a Linux application I've developed, and I have created a standalone VMWare Image that people can download to try out the application without needing to install and configure a Linux Server. I created this VMWare Image by starting with a base Debian system, installing a bunch of packages and then configuring all the packages and daemons my application depends on. Upon load, the VMWare Image boots right into an X Server running only my application and no Window manager, so its more of a "Virtual Appliance" than a normal Linux Desktop environment. Users generally will never see a command prompt or any application other than my own. (My application itself I have a handle on the licensing issues of)

Now I would like to distribute this image, but I'm not sure how to meet my GPL (and other licenses the various Debian components are released under) Obligations. As I understand it, I have two primary obligations to meet.

  1. Providing Copyright and License Information for each component I use. As I understand it, all the information I am required to present is located in the /usr/share directory in the Debian, but since my users generally will never touch a console or terminal, they will never see this. Does providing a text file containing a concatenation of all the files inside /usr/share meet this obligation

  2. Making source code available for all components I distribute. Since I am not creating the image from source, but from binary packages, I can't provide the actual source code that results in exactly my image being generated. Does providing an ftp mirror and an offer to send that mirror on DVDs of the Debian source debs for all the packages I use meet this obligation?

  3. Anything Else I'm required to do to legally distribute this image?

Best Answer

1, Does providing a text file containing a concatenation of all the files inside /usr/share meet this obligation

I would say it goes beyond the obligation. My media player box didn't come with anything saying what version of linux and busybox it's running underneath.

2, Making source code available for all components I distribute.

edit. Apparently you are still required to distribute the source if you don;'t modify the binaries. The FSF have apparently been contacting small linux distributors over this (see http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/55285). If a link to the debian source folders would be enough is upto them.

  1. Anything Else I'm required to do to legally distribute this image?

I think you are going beyond what most embedded systems do - a note mentioning Debian in the docs or startup screen might be a polite thing to do.

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