Michael Robertson Interview about Lindows

unclegus writes "I ran across this article talking about Michael Roberston and Lindows. Says a "Sneak Preview" will be available in a few weeks. Release 1.0 will be $100 for single user ..." Dan Gillmor, the author of it, has said that it appears to be the real thing - I'll be interested in getting my hands on it.

Comments

Re:Is this legal?

[bconway]

I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but only changes to GPL sofware need to be released. They can do whatever they want with Wine (not GPL), and if they made any kernel changes they will be released. I dunno who told you that about bash, but it's incorrect, RMS has no say in who uses or packages bash as long as no changes are made or those changes are released. Something being reliant or using GPL software means absolutely nothing in regards to the GPL.

vmware does it

[yerricde]

Is [creating a Linux kernel module] a GPL violation?

No. Linus has allowed binary-only modules into the kernel provided they communicate with the kernel using well-defined APIs. For instance, the vmware package includes a binary-only kernel module.

If Apple can't make BASH the MacOS X command line shell (apparently they asked, RMS said no, that would be a violation)

I don't see how it would be a violation under the "mere aggregation" clause of the GPL.

Re:Interesting work, from a technical aspect

[mwalker]

I have a reply to your comment, and a reply to your .sig.

First, your comment:
Yes, Microsoft will try to outrun you be rev'ing their software faster. It's called churn; they live and die by it. But they also do... much nastier things to make your code stop working (like the Stealth Virus I just linked to). It all depends on how much of a threat they think you are.

Second, your .sig:
Slashdot does tell you when Editors are moderating your posts. In the Slashdot messaging system, you can turn on "notify me of moderation", and every time an Editor moderates one of your posts, you will get a message saying that "a User gave your comment a score of blah blah blah". This is because Editors are actually called "Users" at Slashdot. You can read more about this if you like, but basically, this is a solved problem.