Re: New licence and driver SDK ?

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Mar 03, 2004 at 07:54:25PM -0500, Ed Cogburn wrote:
> Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> >Ed Cogburn wrote:
> >[...]
> >
> >>The rest of that article does go on to discuss the whole binary module
> >>"problem" with Linux, but the Linksys issue appears to be over, and 
> >>again, it
> >>happened without anyone challenging the GPL.
> >
> >
> >Aha. So Cisco and others aren't really violating the GPL by 
> >distributing products that contain binary only ("proprietary") 
> >code linked with the holly GPL'd stuff. Right or wrong?
> 
> 
> They included the source for the changes they made, and that appears to 
> have satisfied the FSF and others.  I don't really care about the details, 
> *you* brought LinkSys up when I mentioned that no one has yet tried to 
> challenge the GPL in court, and I'm simply pointing out that LinkSys chose 
> to avoid a court fight too.
> 
> I just read a Groklaw article showing that Fujitsu-Siemens and Allnet GmbH 
> have both settled out of court in cases involving GPL violations, with both 
> companies saying they will abide by the GPL in the future.  It must be 
> infuriating to a GPL-hater like you that of all these big companies with 
> plenty of money and lawyers, not one of them is willing to attack the GPL.  
> I wonder why?  Maybe you should stop and think about that yourself....

Well, the fact that it might be a PR disaster for them to do so probably
has some weight in their decision too. As it is currently for SCO, which
is dead wheter it wins or looses, and it all seems it will loose. Notice
that the new XFree86 licence also falls in this category, and that it is
not good for the image of the XFree86 project. But then, i guess you
knew what you did when you choose it.

Friendly,

Sven Luther
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