> According to the GPL, if you do NOT > distribute your source code to your friends (if > it's a GPL'd program or one based off of a GPL'd > program), you are in violation of the license. > > Now these violations may be > "selectively" unenforced when it's just you > dealing with friends but your friends DO have > the right to obtain the source code from you.
Well, you're not in violation at all if you happen to include a clause saying where the source may be obtained.
You can give notice of where to actually obtain the source as opposed to including source with the distribution. For instance, snail mail on tape is a valid distribution method, although it costs you for the tape and postage. So you can recover those costs, a reasonable handling fee may apply at any step of the distribution, . It's just that with the GPL, any person along the line has the right to distribute the package as they see fit, not necessarily with any cost. The person who obtains it via tape can put it on the net, gratis to download for any and all, if they choose to, and there's nothing the original distributor can do to restrict that from happening.
Look at what happened to Lighthouse Design software, the makers of a quality suite of applications for NEXTSTEP. Bought by Sun and quickly collapsed into JavaSoft, never to be heard from again. If Lighthouse's software was available for Mac OS X Server - woah! That would just kick.
Although a(nother) powerful company behind a popular Linux application definitely swings more momentum towards it, Sun's public persona seems to be platform specific - the Java platform, that is. Is there any (end user) software coming from inside Sun that isn't Java? Is there any that runs on multiple platforms like StarOffice does (other than the Java environment itself)?
Unfortunately, you know that old story - big company buys small company with the talent for getting quality things done quick. Getting absorbed into a gigantic infrastructure seems to take a toll on results.
So - I hope that Sun keeps Star separate, I hope that Sun doesn't trash everything that isn't Java, and I hope that quality software results.
AFAIK the cardbus isn't even _close_ to being fast enough.
CardBus is in fact PCI with a different form factor (PC Card), as well as being backward compatible with PCMCIA cards.
I would love to see some kind of passthrough or just plain old vga out 3D card for a laptop, considering most chipsets that laptops come with nowadays are crap.
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> According to the GPL, if you do NOT
> distribute your source code to your friends (if
> it's a GPL'd program or one based off of a GPL'd
> program), you are in violation of the license.
>
> Now these violations may be
> "selectively" unenforced when it's just you
> dealing with friends but your friends DO have
> the right to obtain the source code from you.
Well, you're not in violation at all if you happen to include a clause saying
where the source may be obtained.
You can give notice of where to actually obtain the source as opposed to including
source with the distribution. For instance, snail mail on tape is a valid distribution
method, although it costs you for the tape and postage. So you can recover those
costs, a reasonable handling fee may apply at any step of the distribution, . It's
just that with the GPL, any person along the line has the right to distribute the
package as they see fit, not necessarily with any cost. The person who obtains it
via tape can put it on the net, gratis to download for any and all, if they choose
to, and there's nothing the original distributor can do to restrict that from happening.
Look at what happened to Lighthouse Design software, the makers of a quality suite of applications for NEXTSTEP. Bought by Sun and quickly collapsed into JavaSoft, never to be heard from again. If Lighthouse's software was available for Mac OS X Server - woah! That would just kick.
Although a(nother) powerful company behind a popular Linux application definitely swings more momentum towards it, Sun's public persona seems to be platform specific - the Java platform, that is. Is there any (end user) software coming from inside Sun that isn't Java? Is there any that runs on multiple platforms like StarOffice does (other than the Java environment itself)?
Unfortunately, you know that old story - big company buys small company with the talent for getting quality things done quick. Getting absorbed into a gigantic infrastructure seems to take a toll on results.
So - I hope that Sun keeps Star separate, I hope that Sun doesn't trash everything that isn't Java, and I hope that quality software results.
AFAIK the cardbus isn't even _close_ to being fast enough.
CardBus is in fact PCI with a different form factor (PC Card), as well as being backward compatible with PCMCIA cards.
I would love to see some kind of passthrough or just plain old vga out 3D card for a laptop, considering most chipsets that laptops come with nowadays are crap.
Jeff.