On 27/03/2009 19:17, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
Interesting anecdote: Our company developed a Linux driver to one piece
of hardware that our largest customer used. We did not release it under
GPL terms but this is OK legally since the kernel doesn't require GPL'd
drivers.
The customer had a problem with one of the stock open source drivers in
their OS. However, they couldn't get *any* support from the community
because the community wouldn't even bother looking at a kernel that was
"tainted" by a proprietary driver. So we were *forced* to relicense our
driver under GPL terms (this customer has a lot of clout), just so the
free software community would look at a problem completely unrelated to
our driver. They probably never even looked at the source in our driver.
How is this different from Walter, Andrei and co. refusing to look at
Tango?
Putting aside attitudes and ego, the community refused to look at the
tainted kernel out of fear of potentially being sued for copy-right
infringement and for the you have the draconian (and unconstitutional)
US law to blame, not the FSF and its GPL.
This is the kind of mentality I think that completely goes against
progress, and it's fostered by the GPL. I'm not saying the GPL is
useless, but I see little to no value in a for-profit company using it
unless they are forced to. And there's this holier-than-thou attitude
from GPL supporters that completely sucks.
Anyway, I agree that the world could do just as good without GPL. Maybe
it was necessary in the beginning, but not any more.
-Steve
Both proprietary and free software have a place in the world since they
serve different purposes.
for instance, I wouldn't want military software to be available online
with the risk of being exploited by terrorists but on the other hand I
wouldn't want to use any non reasonably free COTS software. When you buy
a car you are free to look under the hood and the same should apply to
software. sure, the manufacturer can and probably should void any
warranty if you mess with the internals of its product, but they
shouldn't prevent you access to those internals.
"I see little to no value in a for-profit company using it [the GPL]"
how do you explain Red-Hat's success? there are many many companies that
gain a lot by using GPL and they are certainly not forced to use it.
I agree with you that there are zealots with that holier-than-thou
attitude and that this really sucks. by saying - "I agree that the world
could do just as good without GPL. Maybe it was necessary in the
beginning, but not any more. " you just joined the group of zealots.
As I already said, in reality, both proprietary and free software are
useful since they fulfill different requirements. saying otherwise is
stupid and wrong.
