On Sun, November 21, 2004 1:43 pm, Mike Hearn said: > > I think you need to talk to the nVidia engineers and/or Alan Cox, who has > said in the past (I think) that he can't find a way for them to open their > driver sources without suffering serious consequences. It's not a simple > matter of patents and legal problems. It's a matter of economics. > > Anyway, this whole point is silly: nobody should be *forced* against their > wishes to open source their code if they don't want to. If open source > development really is better than the old way, then rational people will > become a part of it over time if they can. Similarly no open source developer should be *forced* to deal with issues created by binary only components. > The last thing we want is some developers saying "I didn't want to GPL my > code, but I was forced to". That achieves nothing in the long run. Next > time they write software that doesn't have to be GPLd they won't do it, > because nobody made the argument to them for the free software philosophy > and won. > > In fact the most likely thing is not that they'll GPL their sources > against their wishes, more likely they'll just hack around it or not > bother. Either way, Linux will continue under the stewardship of those who understand and respect the fundamental difference between it and closed-source alternatives. Sean
