Francis Earl wrote:
Yes, I understand that is why the large companies are involved and why
they want to protect their own interests at the expense of their users.
However, that is not why a lot of open source software is written, and
a lot that was originally written without such restrictions has
subsequently had the viral GPL applied.
Large companies are involved in open source because it is more cost
effective to provide your share of the total R&D rather than the entire
R&D.
And because the GPL provides the anti-competitive means to keep others
from improving the product in ways you might like better without them
being able to offer it too.
GPL is designed to EMPOWER users, to give the control BACK to the user.
You should read the GNU Manifesto some time.
Technically, users are permitted to do anything they want - the
restrictions apply only to redistribution. However, most people don't
want to write all of their own code or couldn't even if they tried, so
for all practical purposes, the GPL simply limits what you can get.
I'm speaking from a user's perspective, not a distributor making money
on support. I'd much rather not have any such restrictions prohibiting
others from improving the code under their own terms. I'd rather make
up my own mind about those terms. Tivo's OS-X, etc. are all good things
from a consumer perspective.
Use the livna repo if you do not care about such restrictions.
I do care about the legal issues and they aren't going to go away.
For what
it's worth, a Tivo is a Linux box.
And part of the reason for GPLv3 was to make such things more difficult.
The FSF isn't doing you any favors.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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