> This goes beyond what copyright is about and I think that many people > pushing GPL v3 do not see this angle. They are only very afraid of being > ripped off - honestly, making my HW tamper-proof (doesn't need to be > just DRM!) brings me more revenue (and perhaps it is even a legal must - > e.g. medical equipment!) than having your software with the attached > legal baggage available on it. The only person losing is the developer > of the GPL v3 software here. I don't agree with that. It is the developer's choice to release their free software under MIT, LGPL, GPLv2 or GPLv3 licenses. In your line, LGPL or MIT are always preferable to GPL, but that's only the case if you only care about having the maximum of users([1]).
> There are only very few OSS programs that a > company producing proprietary hardware would not be willing to > re-implement - unless you have something like a Linux kernel or Apache, > you are not really relevant with your GPL v3. > The issue with free software is that there is a whole lot of it. You take pains to port the linux kernel and gcc compiler to your machine, and all of a sudden there are tons of software immediately available. They cannot re-implement it all. > I think that many OSS developers need a bit of reality check sometimes. > They are realistic (type 'apt-cache search .' for a proof), but they are willing to make small sacrifices to have more free software. I'd say it is a strategic decision to decide whether to make your hardware open or not. There are other benefits from open hardware for the vendor, like a more involved community. Also, there are very special purposes which call for specific hardware, but it is way cheaper to rely on something existing (and popular) than building the device from scratch ([2]). An open device would be a better choice then. Stallman's strategy is: put a lot of free software within their reach, but only if they make the device open, and that way more hardware will be open. True: some vendors will opt for closed software because of this, but we better have some open hardware than a lot of closed hardware. I think open hardware allows for creative uses of technology, for both big and small companies, so it is an objective worth a small sacrifice. [1] Richard Stallman: Why you shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html [2] A PDA for blind people built on top of an existing PDA, totally wasting the screen: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2002/10/55915 _______________________________________________ Soya-user mailing list Soya-user@gna.org https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/soya-user
