jdow@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
From: "Jeff Vian" <jvian10@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On Tue, 2006-01-17 at 21:40 +0000, Andy Green wrote:
jdow wrote:
> Andy, I am a software developer by trade. I use it to earn my
daily bread
> and board. If I develop in an environment that involves GPL I
cannot see a
> model that will continue to feed me and house me unless I take up
a side
> job asking, "Do you want to supersize that, sir?" or sit at my own
help
> desk all day instead of developing. GPL contaminates things too
thoroughly.
> I am not a lawyer. I just read that document and basically stay
away from
> GPL except for some recreational coding I've done.
I also design software and hardware... but depending on the field you
work in, GPL stuff can bring an awful lot of firepower to the party
very
cheaply. Again depending on the circumstance, the compataibility,
quality, time to market and royalty-free advanatages surrounding that
can overwhelm the possible competitive disadvantage of having to open
some of your stuff.
The general deal is AIUI if you link with GPL'd stuff -- not LGPL'd,
which will not infect what it links to but only changes to itself --
you
will have to open your work. It seems that we crossed a threshold now
and the signs are that if you generate kernel modules you can expect
that sources will be demanded.
Not necessarily. Look at the nVidia and ATI video drivers. They are
kernel modules and the source is not open. They use proprietary code in
the drivers.
There are some young hotheads who insist that these drivers inherit
some GPL headers, at least. Hence they must be themselves GPLed. There
has been no serious effort to clarify the situation. It is in a rather
unstable balance situation as best I can determine. Rocking the boat
could result in no more drivers from manufacturers period. That would
not be good for Linux any more than opening their code in the intensely
competitive video board market would be good for nVidia or ATI.
It's these young hotheads and the existing "benign neglect" on the part
of the majority of kernel developers who COULD bring suit that leaves me
nervous. Some of what I have done for the show control industry involves
custom device driver-like gadgets designed to look like MIDI ports to
applications but in reality do something a little "different" like
control PLCs. If I give that code away "poof" I'm out of a market.
{o.o}
Up until recently I worked for a company that developed and marketed a
closed source, Linux based, network monitoring product
(http://www.vericept.com). The company lawyers saw no problem with us
building and selling a closed source product that included calls to a
variety of GPLed and LGPLed libraries. As has been extensively
discussed over at Groklaw (http://www.groklaw.net) and elsewhere on the
'net, headers and interfaces are *not* protectable elements under
copyright law. The only way the GPL kicks (via copyright law) in is if
you actually modify executable GPLed code for your product. At worst,
you would then need to make only these changes to the GPLed code
available as source (there's also nothing that says the maintainer has
to accept your changes; just publishing them is sufficient).
What's good enough for the goose is good enough for the gander so the
GPL zealots can't have it both ways. Either implementing libraries that
are compatible with existing Unix(tm) headers and interfaces violates
someone's (say SCO's) copyrights or using GPLed headers and interfaces
to GPLed libraries in proprietary code is legal. That being said, the
open source folks have a lot more to lose if headers and interfaces are
suddenly found to be subject to copyright protection.
IANAL and the above is my reading of various discussions on especially
Groklaw plus putting two and two together to get something that looks a
lot like four.
Cheers,
Dave
