Les Mikesell wrote:
> Peter Gordon wrote:
>> and would need to continuously prove their superiority to
>> potential users and developers in other ways (such as: What is the quality
>> of
>> the codebase? What attention is paid to proactive security?
>
> I don't see how the license has any bearing at all here. Can you give
> an example of Linux vs. (say) one of the *BSD's where using the GPL
> matters in this regard.
The license has bearing here because it if were a BSD-like license, then
they would be competing (in theory) on features along, not the overall
user experience or quality of code.
>> > Yes, preventing many similar useful products.
>> Please name one specific product example that has been prevented from being
>> marketed and/or sold by the GPL.
>
> An OSX like system, complete with drivers for all hardware and other
> licensed components along with a GPL'd kernel.
Wrong! OS X is based on FreeBSD's code, and other open source things
which Apple has released under their APSL (whose recent revisions *are*
GPL-compatible, if I recall correctly). Apple is in no way required to keep
their OS X kernel open source, yet they do anyway because of the good
community PR and development support it gains for them.
>> As I understand it, it (Samba) was reverse-engineered strictly for the
>> purposes of interoperability. This is considered fair, and is legal under
>> international copyright law.
>
> Copyrights and patents are very different approaches. Microsoft has
> not chosen to enforce any patent protection against samba yet but
> that doesn't mean they can't or won't.
Ack. I misunderstood that in relation to your earlier statements. Thanks
for the clarification.
--
Peter Gordon (codergeek42)
This message was sent through a webmail
interface, and thus not signed.
