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Intel, Red Hat Agree To BSD License For Intel Patches

Posted by timothy on from the bsd-is-like-a-convertable-suv dept.

stock points to this story on CNET, excerpting "Red Hat and Intel have settled a licensing hiccup that threatened to prevent the Linux company from contributing to Intel's open-source project--a reminder of the frictions that can arise between the commercial tech world and the open-source community." By adding a BSD-variant license to certain kernel contributions from Intel, the two companies have bridged an impasse between the GPL and Intel's "component architecture" license.

8 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Superior Power Management... by $$$$$exyGal · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It involved one component of power management software used in Linux and several other operating systems.

    I'm glad they came up with an acceptable agreement. The end result is that more people will have superior power management abilities... and those people probably won't care how they got them. Still though, they wouldn't have the ability so quickly and as well if Intel and Redhat didn't come together.

    --sex

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    Very popular slashdot journal for adul
    1. Re:Superior Power Management... by 6 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The end result is that more people will have superior power management abilities... and those people probably won't care how they got them.


      But isn't that the point? If all that was important was having the niftiest and greatest thing why not just use windows?



      The entire point of the GPL was that it does matter how a goal was achieved. This is just one more step down the path of reducing Linux to just another corporate OS.


  2. Sensible for Intel by Fluffy+the+Cat · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Intel want ACPI to be adopted by as many OSes as possible, and they want it to work. Releasing their code under a license that allows OS vendors to simply integrate it into their own OS increases compatibility (the Windows ACPI interpreter has a somewhat different interpretation of the standards to the Intel one) and is plainly in their own business interests.


    There are situations where a BSD-style license is preferable to the GPL. This is one of them.

  3. Re:How does redhat even have the authority to do t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I could easily rant for half an hour on the subject, but the question I posed in the subject line remains.

    Tell you what. A better use of that half hour would be spent reading the article.

  4. Why dual license? by shepd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All BSD code is also GPL code (or any other license, by definition). Simply insta-fork it every time it comes out. Problem solved. Everyone wins, especially the GPL guys if they make improvements, since they can't be back-ported to the BSD version.

    I see this is a great way to ensure BSD people win, proprietary vendors win, and GPL people win.

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    If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
    1. Re:Why dual license? by HiThere · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No. All BSD code can be GPLd. This isn't automatic. If you get your hands on a BSD binary, the restrictions of the GPL that allow you to get the source cannot be invoked. So neither is included in the other.

      If you can choose, as a user you would generally prefer to have got the code under a GPL license, and as a distributor you would perfer to have gotten it under a BSD license. (If you care about the difference, of course.)

      The GPL license was developed to benefit the developers of the code, but the mechanism for doing so involved giving extra rights to the users of the code (i.e., the legitimate recipients) at the cost of the distributors.

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      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    2. Re:Why dual license? by bovinewasteproduct · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All BSD code is also GPL code (or any other license, by definition).

      Not if they use the 4 clause BSDL.

      Simply insta-fork it every time it comes out. Problem solved. Everyone wins, especially the GPL guys if they make improvements, since they can't be back-ported to the BSD version.

      So, you just want the ability to take the code and not give back to the project? Sounds just like the compliants the GPL guys use aginst the commericial people... hummmm....

      And people wonder why I use the 4 clause BSDL...

      BWP

  5. Not exactly... by inode_buddha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    More than a few people here might be surprised to know that there was a *huge* flame-war on the linux kernel mail-list a few weeks ago which dragged on for days, regarding the use of nVidia's closed-source drivers in the kernel, regardless of however open or closed the hooks into their drivers may be. (W/R/T hardware GL rendering) Evidently, it's ok with Linus, and it *is* his project after all, so I can't really complain. Especially not since I use nVidia cards.

    Conclusion: It's possible. Nothing new to see here, let's move along...

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    C|N>K