Shawn Walker wrote: <snip>
>I think the GPL is the problem, not the CDDL. GPL is NOT a problem for software developers (or companies) who don't have to rely on selling software products for a living (e.g., those who can live on donations--like FSF, or prosper by charging fees for providing services--like IBM, etc.) But the issue becomes this: can we allow those fortunate few to dictate how the unfortunate rest should live their professional lives? GPL, however, is a BIG problem for hardware manufacturers which cannot rely on copyright to protect their trade secrets. A couple of months ago, St. Ignutcious (i.e., Sir RMS) gave a talk in Taipei. The gist of his talk was to urge Taiwan's PC periphery makers to publish their specs, so the free software community (Sir RMS doesn't like the term "open source") can write drivers for them. But the fact is (& everyone in the audience knows that), in the cut throat PC peripheral world, once you publish your specs, your most valuable company asset (trade secret) will be gone, and someone will instantly build a bunch of bigger and better plants in China undercutting your price by at least half. This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
