you seem to forget that sco has been making some noises about preparing a "license offer" for linux users. do you really think that would be without payment (not that i think they would be able to collect)?
well, balmer is full of it. you can't take something (in this case code) that doesn't belong to you and contribute it somewhere else. the GPL states explicitely that you can not distribute code that is not GPLed.
the problem that somebody contributes code that shouldn't be there also exists with proprietary software. or does balmer have a secret tool that checks whether code one of his employees wrote was lifted from a proprietary system balmer doesn't have access to? he has to rely on the contributor's assertion that his contribution is clean
when you ship something you better make sure you know it. somehow i doubt that "i didn't know the tires blow easly" would protect a car manufacturer from liability when he ships his cars with those tires. they would have a case (provided their factual claims are correct) if their customers would get the disputed code from elsewhere and installed it separately.
if you don't have time to review the code, don't ship it. you can always mention to your customer that there is this piece of software you can get there or there that probably is of use to them, but you haven't evaluated it yet
i would argue what the GNU code provides is the programming infrastructure on which you can build systems and applications. that's what they spent their time on, and they were just about ready when linux came along
no. their problem with the BSD license is that it doesn't require derivative work to be distributed with source. the whole thng about the GPL is preserving the ability of a program's user to modify it according to the user's needs.
you might think about stallman's stance whatever you want, but in this situation clarifying a few things (like linux is the kernel of the gnu system) goes a long way combatting sco'd fud
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you seem to forget that sco has been making some noises about preparing a "license offer" for linux users. do you really think that would be without payment (not that i think they would be able to collect)?
well, balmer is full of it. you can't take something (in this case code) that doesn't belong to you and contribute it somewhere else. the GPL states explicitely that you can not distribute code that is not GPLed. the problem that somebody contributes code that shouldn't be there also exists with proprietary software. or does balmer have a secret tool that checks whether code one of his employees wrote was lifted from a proprietary system balmer doesn't have access to? he has to rely on the contributor's assertion that his contribution is clean
when you ship something you better make sure you know it. somehow i doubt that "i didn't know the tires blow easly" would protect a car manufacturer from liability when he ships his cars with those tires. they would have a case (provided their factual claims are correct) if their customers would get the disputed code from elsewhere and installed it separately. if you don't have time to review the code, don't ship it. you can always mention to your customer that there is this piece of software you can get there or there that probably is of use to them, but you haven't evaluated it yet
i would argue what the GNU code provides is the programming infrastructure on which you can build systems and applications. that's what they spent their time on, and they were just about ready when linux came along
no. their problem with the BSD license is that it doesn't require derivative work to be distributed with source. the whole thng about the GPL is preserving the ability of a program's user to modify it according to the user's needs.
you might think about stallman's stance whatever you want, but in this situation clarifying a few things (like linux is the kernel of the gnu system) goes a long way combatting sco'd fud