Ric Moore wrote:
On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 15:26 +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
I would like some clarification. Is the above what the whole dispute is about?
A warning message?
I didn't think it was a dispute just someone sounding off. But yes all we
do to "enforce" the module licensing for general usage symbols exported
with EXPORT_SYMBOL() is provide a taint warning. For deep internal
symbols a kernel module must be GPL or GPL compatibly licensed.
That sounds perfectly logical to me, as you cannot warranty nor have
responsibility for something you didn't or can't code or modify. RH IS a
commercial product. No doubt about it and they are completely up-front
about it and always have been. It would be a disservice to their
customer base to ship a pristine product with a handful of potential
garbage tossed in. It would be dumber-than-hell. So, where's the beef?
Just think liability. Think insurance costs. Think CFO. There isn't
anything in the world that would convince a really good CFO to allow his
company to ship something that might prove to be a financial liability
in this sue-happy world we live in. Give it up, and get real guys.
I think you've pretty much described the way windows works. Do you
really think Microsoft's CFO has a big problem compared to RedHat's?
I betcha Dell has a CFO too. And, I bet they don't ship something with
mp3 playback loaded and ready to use in it, as shipped. Wait and see
what happens. :) Ric
Did you happen to not notice that virtually every Dell currently shipped
has mp3 playback loaded - also WMA and most would have dvd too. It's
Linux that brings a problem into this picture.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
