Re: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers

From: Neil Brown
Date: Thu Feb 15 2007 - 03:12:38 EST


On Thursday February 15, trent.waddington@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> On 2/15/07, Neil Brown <neilb@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> > [..] then it is less clear what people believe
>
> Another area where it is less clear what people believe is if you are
> distributing the module separately to the kernel, but, as I understand
> it, vj says he is not.
>
> > But of course the person who's opinion really counts is the judge.
>
> The judge's opinion only counts if you actually get to court and
> manage to put up a legal defense.
>
> > So you need to get legal advice.
>
> Or, ya know, you could take the moral/ethical advice that you're being
> a worm and stop now.

I don't think we do ourselves any favours by calling people names....

And as I understand it, an important principle in out community is
freedom. If vj wants to take a particular moral/ethical stance, then
he should be free to do that. Of course he will have to live with any
consequences, as do we all.

He (or maybe she? I don't know but English is forcing me to use
gender-specific pronouns) or his company sees a business risk in open
sourcing their code. They now see a legal risk it not doing so. They
get to choose how to respond.

This list is a great place to seek technical advice on the different
options. It is not such a good place to get business or legal
advice.

NeilBrown
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