Konstantinos,
thanks, I agree with your thoughts. My approach has been to accept
small steps in the right direction and encourage reasoned discussion. I also
think that Linaro's main function is as a place where all the moving parts can
collaborate. Right now, the GPU 'problem' is that of getting both open
source and proprietary pieces of the BSPs to work really well together in
products. That's really the focus of the Graphics WGs and the partner landing
teams. This is a heavy lifting engineering job, and it will take time, but
everyone is willing and hopeful of good results. Doing this will also help
us have a reasoned discussion about where the open source and proprietary
boundaries make sense.
Now for a bit of a rant. Personally, I have a deep and abiding
respect for open source (for me, it's the key social invention of the internet
age), however I also recognise that it would not exist without companies using
open source as part of their products. Let's face it, an awful lot of open
source engineers are getting their mortgages paid by companies that make use of
open source. No company invests in open source for philanthropic reasons;
they understand that it is necessary for their businesses. The tricky
problem is always in how ethical a company's usage is (and I use the word
'ethical' deliberately because this is wider than mere legal words smithing);
whenever I give talks on GPL, I emphasise both the moral as well as the legal
duties. In my experience, most companies struggle to understand open source
when they first start to interact with it. It usually takes some open source
zealots within the company to persuade their management of the right
way to behave. The best way to get companies to change their behaviour is to
find them and support them. Making threatening GPL noises in email does not
help them in any way.
Dave
David Rusling, CTO
http://www.linaro.org
Linaro
Lockton House
Clarendon Rd
Cambridge
CB2 8FH
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