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Legal Summits to Tackle Linux
An anonymous reader writes "BuilderAU has the story that the Linux Foundation, custodians of the Linux trademark, have announced that they will host two summits to deal with legal issues surrounding Linux and open-source software. Attendance at the first summit will be restricted to members of the Linux Foundation and their legal counsel. The second summit — an open meeting — will be held in Autumn 2008 where legal experts from any background will be able to attend."
I don't think you know what that statement means. However you could be forgiven in this instance since there is a good reason for that; it doesn't mean anything.
If you mean copyrights; please could you point to the code? Linux has pretty clearly been exhonerated by the results of the SCO lawsuit from accusations of copyright infringement. If you mean trademarks that's a first accusation; Linux is pretty clearly a trademark given by a court to Linus Torvalds. If you mean patents, the you'll notice that not even Microsoft has been able to point to one despite direct requests and full access to the source code.
Please feel free to restate your feelings in a way that can actually be usefully discussed.
All software 'tramples over intellectual property'. Half of the most basic interface features and algorithms used by *everyone* in the software industry are patented. It's pretty much impossible to write modern software (in countries that allow software patents) that doesn't infringe on multiple patents.
Here are some examples of patents granted (but not enforceable, it's a strange situation) in Europe. I suspect most of them have also been granted and *are* enforceable in the US.
http://eupat.ffii.org/patents/samples/index.en.html
Linus made Linux in the first place. It's his baby. He should be able to take it wherever he wants, whether you or I like it. Whether Linux is in accord with the spirit of the GPL v2 or v3 is irrelevant - the fact is he likes the letter of GPL v2 (I think his assertion that he understands the spirit of GPL v2 better than it's authors is silly, though).
Personally, I disagree with a lot of things about Linux. And you know what I can do about it? Just not use Linux at home. Sure, I use Linux at work, because I develop software for it, because customers want to use it, just as I use Windows at work for developing Windows software for customers who want to use Windows. You can call me a sellout, but the reason I'm at work is to provide something that customers want, to make money to buy food, etc.
If you want an OS that fits your ideology, find like-minded people and build one. Isn't that what HURD is meant to be? Don't try to take over Linux. Since HURD is going nowhere, it would appear that not that many significant developers care about building an OS on an ideology.
Linux seems to get the balance right for a lot of people: open enough that you can modify it and feel in control, but not overly restricted so you can't build a workable business around it. It may be an uncomfortable fact for some, but Linux wouldn't be where it is now without the commercial backing it's got from IBM, Novell, etc. Building and maintaining something like an OS requires huge effort, and the only way to muster that in a capitalist society is with the prospect of building a profitable business on it.
How exactly did MS swallow "the BSD"? Last time I checked, BSD projects and communities were as strong as ever. If MS chose to use BSD code in their product, good for them! The end result is less crappy code.
No, the spirit of the GPL was to ensure that anyone who benefits from the code returns any upgrades they make to it.
BSD software cannot 'be made proprietary'. The original code will ALWAYS be available under the BSD.
If Linus had chosen BSD License, Microsoft would not have 'swallowed' Linux. It may have improved Windows with it, and may even have ended up with a better system than Linux, but absolutely no real harm would have come to Linux itself.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Lets clear one thing up right here. Microsoft was not only allowed, but very wise to use the bsd TCP/IP stack. Berkley were asked to produce the definitive version of the stack, so as to ensure that all vendors were on the same page, so far as the specification was concerned.
Microsoft changed some parts, as is their wont, but much of it remains unchanged. They may be buggers about a lot of things, but lets get this right, if they hadn't adopted BSDs TCP/IP code, windows would be even worse then it is now.
sigs are hazardous to your health
No big deal, you say, that doesn't hurt the BSD code as it exists, sure. But now take 4 or 5 or 20 groups all doing this to the BSD code -- the codebase doesn't move much, even though lots of people are making individual improvements -- even worse, those 20 groups don't get to leverage off of each others improvements.
So while people can contribute changes to BSD code back to the code base (and many folks do), big players like Microsoft can mooch off of them and contribute nothing back; making their product always a little bit better than the BSD licensed one, which starves the BSD licencsed product of customers. And in an open source project, customers are also a developer pool.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
HonIsCool , you never read a GPL license , did you ?
There is no way FSF can 'eradicate' non-free software . Using GPL only prevents non-free software from 'eradicating' free software . The only reason to use it , is to make sure nobody can take your work , change one line of code , and then release it under a propiertary lincense and make money of your hard work .
No one is forcing you to use license all your programs under GPL . You can/should use the license you prefer , acording to what you need .
Slipping shoelaces ?
It's no different in principle than a website using Apache/mySQL to serve some HTML or using GNU/Linux to host any kind of service. It's not distributing. You get nothing. You lose. Good day sir.