And making it difficult to ship binary drivers is a bad thing? If the corporations in question would just release source---or even specs---for their devices once, the Linux devs would integrate the drivers into the kernel, and continue to update them through new kernel versions, and the hardware would work perfectly out of the box, just like all other supported hardware does...
Sure TiVO is entitled to pursue whatever business model they want---with their own software. If they want to use GPL software, on the other hand, then they need to be offering users the four freedoms that it's supposed to guarantee, two of which are the rights to modify your software and to distribute your modifications. While TiVO's exact usage is technically allowed by the license, the license's preamble clearly spells out that it's not intended for that sort of thing to be allowed to happen.
I like how when Microsoft subtly destroys competition, the courts make a grand show of slapping them on the wrist with fines, while Verizon gets complete court approval to openly eliminate a competitor with ridiculous patents. Perhaps M$ should change tactics?
Why is ESR so hellbent on taking over the world? We have a system that works, and that can play multimedia just fine, albeit illegally, why does it matter how many people use it? I, for one, don't see ESR wanting to take over the world as enough of a reason to cave in and use proprietary technologies...
It's almost funny that the author knows nothing about the GPL or free software in general, but it's actually far more sad, because other people who don't know anything about the GPL read this shit, and then they think that they do...
Regardless of whether they're successful at it, there's no changing the fact that what they're trying to do here is to circumvent the GPL, and that's simply out of line with the community spirit, and wrong. Their latest move may or may not be illegal, but in PR terms, it really doesn't matter that much at this point.
The free Linux operating system set off one of the biggest revolutions in the history of computing when it leapt from the fingertips of a Finnish college kid named Linus Torvalds 15 years ago. Linux now drives $15 billion in annual sales of hardware, software and services, and this wondrous bit of code has been tweaked by thousands of independent programmers to run the world's most powerful supercomputers, the latest cell phones and TiVo video recorders and other gadgets.
But while Torvalds has been enshrined as the Linux movement's creator, a lesser-known programmer--infamously more obstinate and far more eccentric than Torvalds--wields a startling amount of control as this revolution's resident enforcer. Richard M. Stallman is a 53-year-old anticorporate crusader who has argued for 20 years that most software should be free of charge. He and a band of anarchist acolytes long have waged war on the commercial software industry, dubbing tech giants "evil" and "enemies of freedom" because they rake in sales and enforce patents and copyrights--when he argues they should be giving it all away.
Stallman and his allies hacked away for nearly a decade but couldn't get GNU to work. In 1991 Torvalds, then an unknown college kid in Finland, produced in six months what Stallman's team had failed to build in years--a working "kernel" for an operating system. Torvalds posted this tiny 230-kilobyte file containing 10,000 lines of code to a public server, dubbing it "Linux" and inviting anyone to use it.
If not for the fact that people are going to take this seriously, it would be absolutely hillarious...
I'm absolutely _loving_ the irony of an "Open Source" company giving away licenses of their proprietary software as prizes. Way to hold up the ideal, guys!
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And making it difficult to ship binary drivers is a bad thing? If the corporations in question would just release source---or even specs---for their devices once, the Linux devs would integrate the drivers into the kernel, and continue to update them through new kernel versions, and the hardware would work perfectly out of the box, just like all other supported hardware does...
Sure TiVO is entitled to pursue whatever business model they want---with their own software. If they want to use GPL software, on the other hand, then they need to be offering users the four freedoms that it's supposed to guarantee, two of which are the rights to modify your software and to distribute your modifications. While TiVO's exact usage is technically allowed by the license, the license's preamble clearly spells out that it's not intended for that sort of thing to be allowed to happen.
I like how when Microsoft subtly destroys competition, the courts make a grand show of slapping them on the wrist with fines, while Verizon gets complete court approval to openly eliminate a competitor with ridiculous patents. Perhaps M$ should change tactics?
My girlfriend is blind. Anyone care to tell me how she's going to use a touchscreen?
Why is ESR so hellbent on taking over the world? We have a system that works, and that can play multimedia just fine, albeit illegally, why does it matter how many people use it? I, for one, don't see ESR wanting to take over the world as enough of a reason to cave in and use proprietary technologies...
It's almost funny that the author knows nothing about the GPL or free software in general, but it's actually far more sad, because other people who don't know anything about the GPL read this shit, and then they think that they do...
Regardless of whether they're successful at it, there's no changing the fact that what they're trying to do here is to circumvent the GPL, and that's simply out of line with the community spirit, and wrong. Their latest move may or may not be illegal, but in PR terms, it really doesn't matter that much at this point.
I'm absolutely _loving_ the irony of an "Open Source" company giving away licenses of their proprietary software as prizes. Way to hold up the ideal, guys!