Francis Earl wrote:
RedHat, of course has a
huge vested interest in keeping others from being able to add
improvements that they can't also automatically obtain but that's not my
point here.
Actually, they don't. It is simply a matter of law. RedHat contributes
ALL of its code under GPL or similar licenses BECAUSE of that law. All
of the companies that contribute to Linux do so understand that the
other parties will do the same.
Yes, I understand that is why the large companies are involved and why
they want to protect their own interests at the expense of their users.
However, that is not why a lot of open source software is written, and
a lot that was originally written without such restrictions has
subsequently had the viral GPL applied.
Why should one company be able to leech off of them without investing in
the code themselves? Why should other companies benefit from the work of
those companies that DO NOT WANT THEM TO? That is the point of GPL, you
scratch my back, I'll scratch yours... translated into legal-speak.
I'm speaking from a user's perspective, not a distributor making money
on support. I'd much rather not have any such restrictions prohibiting
others from improving the code under their own terms. I'd rather make
up my own mind about those terms. Tivo's OS-X, etc. are all good things
from a consumer perspective.
RedHat believes Linux isn't ready on the consumer desktop because there
are so many huge holes in what the consumer desires.
And correctly so because of the nature of the GPL.
Take a look at http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Members to see how
anti-competitive Linux is in the tech industry. Anyone that wants in can
contribute and have a say in the direction of it... No one owns Linux,
all you have to do is play by the rules.
But you can't include content already under different restrictions.
There's a lot of that content - some with no legal alternative
replacements possible.
You can distribute that code under GPL if you have the copyrights to it.
Not if the functionality is covered by patents and you don't have those
rights. Unlike copyrights, patents cover the technique, so rewriting
the code is not sufficient to give you the right to use or distribute it.
>> The way to oppose
overpriced proprietary software is to make usable replacements for as
much of it as possible - which necessarily involves using it with code
under different restrictions for as long as there are no free
alternatives. Instead, the license forces users to continue to use all
non-free code since they can't be mixed.
So the way to counteract expensive proprietary software is to use
proprietary software in the making of the alternative? No, the best way
to counteract such things is to replace the ENTIRE product.
That's not one of the choices. You can't replace a patented product
with one that does the same thing.
Also, the point of Linux is NOT to be a cheap alternative. That is in
fact a stated NON-GOAL. The GPL explicitly allows making money from the
code. If I want, I can charge you $5 million dollars for a copy of GIMP
on CD-ROM, if you're dumb enough to pay it :P
That's pretty much irrelevant.
oh well. Windows users have been perfectly fine using a system that
doesn't even support their hardware out of the box.
Windows doesn't change its driver interface on a monthly basis, so users
have no problem getting and installing a vendor-provided driver that
normally continues to work for the life of their machine. That scheme
is not a problem.
I'll state again, Linux currently provides an interface for drivers that
is stable, but it's only available to those willing to release their
code under GPL.
Stating it often doesn't make it true. Drivers that are accepted
in-kernel have someone that will fix them as things change but that does
not resemble stability. One of the main reasons that people pay for
RHEL is that they do keep the driver interface stable for the life of a
release. And of course it is in their interest for fedora not to do the
same useful thing so people are encouraged to pay for RHEL.
No one is suing ATI
or Nvidia, but they are some of companies not abiding by the rules.
If their software uses components already under different restrictions
they can't possibly abide by the law while releasing under GPL terms.
Uhh, hence my insinuating that their drivers are illegal.
No you missed the point entirely. They can't do a GPL release. Some
people might claim that a driver is a work derived from one of the
kernels it might be used with (which is the only thing that would make
it illegal with respect to the GPL) but that is a controversial and in
my opinion, unlikely, claim. They are staying legal in respect to
whatever pre-existing restrictions may be on included components.
DRI
is working as fast as they can though to create a good story despite
that.
Video drivers are a tiny part of this problem.
What do you consider the more important area for the discussion?
All code under any other restrictions falls into the same category as
something you simply can't have in Linux, at least combined with
anything containing GPL code. All code covered by patents can't be
worked around by writing a new implementation. We don't have any way of
knowing how much this might cover in existing code (samba, for example
seems almost certain to duplicate functionality that Microsoft has
patented), and anything that we do know is patented that we need has to
be isolated across interfaces that prevent it from being considered a
'combined work' when used with any specific instance of other code or
for either part to be considered a derived work of the other.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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