On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 14:44:12 -0500 Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Microsoft can make any arrangement they want to license existing > third party components and include them with their own works > and can thus provide any functionality they think a > consumer wants. A potential competitor can take BSD licensed > code and do the same, making it easier for a company without > Microsoft's resources to develop a good competitive product. > However, many of the needed components can never be released > under GPL terms because they are already patented by others > or the best implementation is under someone else's copyright. Now stop right there. Anybody, can go buy a patent from any existing third party and release it under the GPL. Why must you spread such stupitity? > The terms required to license these components may be perfectly > acceptable to the end user but if they don't specifically match > the GPL, the 'work as a whole' clause prevents any GPL'd code > from being used. So paradoxically, the end user can separately Wrong. Anyone can buy a patent from a third party and release the resulting software under the GPL. > obtain all the parts, but is prevented by the GPL from having > a working combination distributed to him. So, all the work that > has gone into GPL'd code is wasted in terms of helping build > competitive products that need additional components under other > terms. The GPL doesn't prevent this. You're just plain wrong. For instance the RCU code is patented by a third party but has been released under the GPL. Please dream up a new argument. Sean
