On 19/06/07, Alexandre Oliva <[email protected]> wrote:
On Jun 18, 2007, Linus Torvalds <[email protected]> wrote:
> In the GPLv3 world, we have already discussed in this thread how you can
> follow the GPLv3 by making the TECHNICALLY INFERIOR choice of using a ROM
> instead of using a flash device.
Yes. This is one option that doesn't bring any benefits to anyone.
It maintains the status quo for users and the community, but it loses
the ability for the vendor to upgrade, fix or otherwise control the
users. Bad for the vendor.
Also bad for the user since now the vendor can no longer supply
updated firmware to fix bugs or otherwise improve the device. Also,
the vendow has the problem that devices that get returned for repair
or similar can't easily be updated software wise. For the vendor not
to be able to update the box creates a lot of problems for both the
vendor and the end user.
As another option, the vendor can respect users' freedoms, and then
everybody wins big. That's the option that anti-tivoization provides
economic incentive for vendors to take. Sure, they may still prefer
the alternative above, or stick with an older version (which has its
costs), or move to different software (which also has its costs), but
it's unreasonable to claim that I'm advocating for vendors to move to
ROM.
I am fairly confident that if too much software switches to GPLv3
we'll see a lot of businesses move to BSD or proprietary software.
That means *we* lose bigtime.
--
Jesper Juhl <[email protected]>
Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
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