pabs3 parent
The Sofware Freedom Conservancy are the main (or only?) enforcers of the GPL these days, and if you read their posts, you will see they disagree with you, GPLv2 requires the ability to modify and reinstall.
Having read [1] in particular, I think you're right and I was mistaken. Thanks! That's quite eye-opening for me, as I followed discussion about GPLv2 and GPLv3 for years yet didn't know about this view of GPLv2 and reinstallation.
Having heard so much about anti-Tivoization when the GPLv3 was being drafted, and the discussions about it on linux-kernel when Linus decided the kernel will remain GPLv2-only, I was left with the impression that the GPLv2 only required the provision of source code, build scripts, etc. but not the ability to reinstall a new version. [1] makes a pretty good case that the ability to reinstall is also required GPLv2, and I'm heartened that's how Tivo saw it too.
[1] https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t...