Re: New licence and driver SDK ?

Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> Ed Cogburn wrote:
> [...]
> 
>>The rest of that article does go on to discuss the whole binary module
>>"problem" with Linux, but the Linksys issue appears to be over, and again, it
>>happened without anyone challenging the GPL.
> 
> 
> Aha. So Cisco and others aren't really violating the GPL by 
> distributing products that contain binary only ("proprietary") 
> code linked with the holly GPL'd stuff. Right or wrong?


They included the source for the changes they made, and that appears to have 
satisfied the FSF and others.  I don't really care about the details, *you* 
brought LinkSys up when I mentioned that no one has yet tried to challenge the 
GPL in court, and I'm simply pointing out that LinkSys chose to avoid a court 
fight too.

I just read a Groklaw article showing that Fujitsu-Siemens and Allnet GmbH 
have both settled out of court in cases involving GPL violations, with both 
companies saying they will abide by the GPL in the future.  It must be 
infuriating to a GPL-hater like you that of all these big companies with 
plenty of money and lawyers, not one of them is willing to attack the GPL.  I 
wonder why?  Maybe you should stop and think about that yourself....

Second half of the article:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040303041041270


>>Again, that is an issue that won't be really decided until the courts weigh in
>>on what a "derivative work" specifically is, and where the boundaries lie.
> 
> 
> In the totally perverse FSF'd world your car is a derivative work 
> of its gas pedal. Give me a break. To me, Moglen&Co are bunch of 
> hypocrites. How can the apparent followers of Benjamin Tucker
> http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/libhe/libhe023.pdf proclaim 
> on one hand the "triumph of anarchism" 
> 
> http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/my_pubs/anarchism.html
> (Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright)
> 
> and, on the other hand, behave as if they have the right to 
> exclude others who merely link to their stuff? Well, you might 
> want to read various relatively recent court opinions like 
> http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/125_F3d_580.htm and 
> try to extrapolate it to software and the issue of linking.


Everyone's entitled to an opinion, and I'm entitled to disagree with yours. 
You obviously have a hang-up with the GPL.  That's fine, in that case, just 
don't use or link to GPL'd code.

Thanks for the Moglen link.  BTW, if you actually read the section "The Legal 
Theory of Free Software" in his essay, you'll understand why their position 
isn't hypocritical, but I somehow doubt you are willing to be open-minded anymore.