Not to the general public.
Who can stop someone leftist whacko from buying a copy and giving it to the Chinese
Because they only work through corporate contracts. This isn't type in your VISA number and download a copy. But if you want it, you can download RT Linux from public sources.
Hasn't worked for anyone else, the goons from the FSF always show up and threaten to sue you
They couldn't sue in this case, as long as Concurrent gives the source to its corporate clients and obeys other minor terms of the GPL. For example, Linksys/Cisco was selling routers to the public without making the source code available to the buyers (those it was distributing the program to). That is in clear violation of the GPL.
I still wonder why you think enforcing copyright with open source is bad, but enforcing copyright with proprietary software is good.
So what, he still argued that they weren't distributing it as his claim for why the Chinese couldn't get a copy
Wow, and to think FD never wrote "China" or "Chinese" once during that thread.
You claimed the Chinese could get it because the GPL forced Concurrent to give a copy to anyone who wanted it. That is factually incorrect, a lie. FD was absolutely correct, they are not forced to give it to anyone.
As usual, you are the liar, and the people you defame are correct.
BTW, I just found out I was wrong about Concurrent. Their Linux has a lot to do with Red Hat since it is not (as I had assumed) based on RTLinux, but is a version of Red Hat modified to work in real-time. But here's where it gets strange -- they replace the Red Hat Linux kernel with their own real-time Linux kernel, so while they may be redistributing (to its corporate clients) Red Hat GPL software, they are not redistributing Red Hat's Linux (as defined by the actual Linux kernel, not the whole package of kernel + utilities). However, that is immaterial to the discussion of Concurrent having to give away code to the Chinese when asked.
You also don't know that what makes Concurrent's Linux very useful is the fact that the kernel is modified to take advantage of its proprietary tools, which are one of the big reasons to go with Concurrent rather than just downloading RTLinux.
According to the article I just linked from Linux Devices it is.
FD was absolutely correct, they are not forced to give it to anyone.
No he wasn't, the flaming dude from hell has been attempting to claim Concurrent wasn't even distributing it at all, which of course was ridiculous since the thread was a Press Release from Concurrent announcing it! LMAO!