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GPL Causing Problems for Derivative Linux Distros
NewsForge (Also owned by VA) is reporting on a recent discovery by Warren Woodford about how the GPL could affect derivative Linux distributions. This could make life difficult for those small distros that are being maintained by one or two people in their spare time due to the high amount of work it creates. From the article: "Woodford does supply the source code for MEPIS' reconfigured kernel in a Debian source-package. His mistake seems to have been the assumption that, so long as the source code was available somewhere, he did not have to provide it himself if he hadn't modified it. While he has not contacted any other distributions, he suspects that he is far from the only one to make this assumption. 'We, like 10,000 other people, probably, believed we were covered by the safe harbor of having an upstream distribution available online,' Woodford says. 'I think, of the 500 distributions tracked by DistroWatch, probably 450 of them are in trouble right now per this position.'"
As RMS stated about Bitkeeper, if you trade fredom for conviniance, sooner or later you will loose. GPL takes your freedom away (forces you to do things you might not want to do), CDDL gives it back to you.
I thought the point of the GPL was to encourage people to share and reuse code.
No, the point of the GPL is to sue people you don't like. It's purpose is to be a big legal club you can bash people over the head wth. This may sound cynical, but if you reexamine the history of the GPL with this in mind, it will all suddenly start making sense.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
And why do you think it's on the www server as opposed to somewhere else on the domain? Oh, that's right, you don't care about the point that Ubuntu themselves don't provide kernel sources in an obvious location, or won't even think that perhaps he paraphrased, because you're too busy attacking him.
The problem with the GPL is that it is awefully restrictive for being "free" software. When I think of "free", I think of a crazy bearded guy, driving down the freeway without a helmet at breakneck speeds on his hog or something like that... not the rigid, arbitrary moral and legal document of some sort of utopian zealot. I think the GPL is more "freedom" in the G. W. Bush use of the word, than the wild-ass anarchist sense of the word.
I consider the new BSD licence to be much closer to "free software"... Do whatever the hell you want with the code, but you are not allowed to restrict the use by anyone else or sue anyone!
Now, you may say that I don't understand the GPL... which might very well be true! I don't claim to be an expert at all. But that just proves my point - If I need to master some complex and subtle understanding of the GPL in order to use it properly, then it is not free in any conventional sense of the word. Police need to read a person their rights when they are being arrested, because if a person doesn't understand their rights then they don't have any rights. If I don't understand the GPL, then clearly I have no rights under the GPL.
The BSD licence, on the other hand, is pretty damn easy to understand, and it is as damn near anarchist as a binding legal agreement can get.
"Man, you are a dick.
I imagine if some asks you for directions to the corner store you just tell them to fuck off and by a map."
No, you are lazy.
You're asking me directions while standing 5 meter next to a big street map. So i have to walk there and look for the street just because you're to lazy to do it yourself.
I have no problem doing this for people who can't read the map (i.e. don't know what to search) but most people just don't think about their problem for one minute before asking in a forum/newsgroup.
yes, i know, how very mature of me...
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
I sense a contradiction here. He couldn't connect to the net, and needed kernel source code to correct this problem... Ok, fine, but then how did he ever get online to the forums? Since he was online and asked for directions (from people with no legal requirement to answer), he should have simply located and downloaded the source. It isn't as though it is hidden away. If he can get to the forums but can't download, then being told where to download wouldn't have helped. I call "bullshit."