On 6/14/07, David Schwartz <[email protected]> wrote:
And what about people who can't modify the Linux kernel? They don't know C.
They don't know how to use a shell. They're not familiar with UNIX operating
systems at all. Maybe they aren't smart enough to modify kernel code.
I learned C in part by modifying the Linux kernel and running the
modified kernel on hardware I own, and enabling precisely that kind of
tinkering is what the "spirit" of the GPL is about, as is quite plain
(to me) from the preamble.
The GPL is about having the legal right to modify the software and being
able to put other people's distributed improvements back into the original
code base.
I agree that is what the letter of the GPLv<3 is about.
It does not guarantee that you will actually be able to modify
the software and get it to work on some particular hardware.
Please don't conflate my endorsement of the "spirit" of the GPL with
Alexandre's assertion that the GPLv2 forbids TiVOisation. I don't
agree with him. My point is that people arguing that the spirit of the
GPL doesn't revolve around the freedom of the end user to modify the
software *and* run modified copies seem to be missing the point. Linus
gets that, as he said in a previous message, he just doesn't
personally care about freedom defined that way.
Dave
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