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Linux Wireless Driver Violates BSD License?
bsdphx writes "After years of encouragement from the OpenBSD community for others to use Reyk Floeter's free Atheros wireless driver, it seems that the Linux world is finally listening. Unfortunately, they seem to think that they can strip the BSD license right out of it."
Hello,
Consulting for several large companies, I'd always done my work on
Windows. Recently however, a top online investment firm asked us to do
some work using Linux. The concept of having access to source code was
very appealing to us, as we'd be able to modify the kernel to meet our
exacting standards which we're unable to do with Microsoft's products.
Although we met several technical challenges along the way
(specifically, Linux's lack of Token Ring support and the fact that we
were unable to defrag its ext2 file system), all in all the process
went smoothly. Everyone was very pleased with Linux, and we were
considering using it for a great deal of future internal projects.
So you can imagine our suprise when we were informed by a lawyer that
we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It
was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something
called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license
states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available.
Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money
we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would
now be available at no cost to our competitors.
Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any
products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to
its source code released. This was simply unacceptable.
Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever
use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult
position. We could either give away our hard work, or come up with
another solution. Although it was tought to do, there really was no
option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000.
I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive
with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually
guarentee that no business will ever be able to use it. After my
experience with Linux, I won't be recommending it to any of my
associates. I may reconsider if Linux switches its license to
something a little more fair, such as Microsoft's "Shared Source".
Until then its attempts to socialize the software market will insure
it remains only a bit player.
Thank you for your time.
Before anyone jumps and mods me troll (please feel free to bring down my imaginary karma), I am the developer of one succesfull program that is now open Source under the Mozilla 1.1 license, and yes, you must be carefully when you release something under any OS license. When the program was freeware , but not OS, I used to sleep a lot better than now, when the last 3 monts only I've been battling with the new team about only legal aspects... Oh, well, next piece os OS I release will be on the public domain.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
How come they aren't upset about Microsoft changing the license on the BSD code they use in Windows products?
You cannot take the BSD files from the Microsoft source code and modify them. Those files are under the Microsoft copyright and you are not even allowed to view them without special permission. The only difference here is that when they are in the Linux tree, you can freely view and modify them.
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