Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3

[david@lang.hm]

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007, Daniel Hazelton wrote:

> > Dispute this:
> >
> > non-tivoized hardware => users can scratch their itches => more
> > contributions from these users
> >
> > tivoized hardware => users can't scratch their itches => fewer
> > contributions from these users
>
> Linus doesn't have to. Statistically the number of people that will even think
> of modifying the code running on a "tivoized" device is minute - at most 5%
> of the users of such a device. Of those people the ones with the skill to
> actually do the work is an even smaller number - figure 2.5 to 3% of them. Of
> those  with the skill, probably about 10% of them are actually *good* enough
> at it for their changes to be useful. Of that number, figure that only 25%,
> at most, will contribute the changes back.
>
> Apply that to a sample case:
> "tivoized" device total users: 1,000,000
> people that think about modifying: 50,000 (5%)
> people with skill: 1500 (3%)
> people who are good enough for the changes to be useful: 150 (10%)
> those who will contribute them back: 38 (25%)

based on my experiance looking at the software released for tivos, I think 
you are over-estimating these numbers. if there are more then a dozen 
people producing things that are good enough to be useful and releasing 
their results as opensource software I would be surprised.

and for all that the FSF is claiming that tivos can't being modified it's 
really not that hard to change.

David Lang
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