David Pottage wrote: "Internet distribution was thought of when the GPL 2 was written, the reason that it is only allowed when the product is distributed via the internet is because there is no guarantee that the URL will allways be valid, and that the data at the end will always be the same. The latest GPL licence that was finalised last month contains the same provisions."

No it doesn't. Read clause 6d. Getting things from a network server is allowed in GPL3, so the provisions are NOT the same as GPL2. You just have to make sure you keep it available (so non-vanishing URL is allowed, vanishing URL is forbidden).

Incidentally, am I correct in thinking that the reference to "6b" in clause 6c is a mistake, should be to "6c"? If I'm wrong, that's an enormous relaxation of conditions compared with GPL2 and the provisions of the two are even more different.