Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 23:44:40 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: marko@uk.radan.com (Mark Ovens) Cc: dyson@iquest.net, brett@lariat.org, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The GPL and the Robinson-Patman Act Message-ID: <199902232344.QAA18256@usr09.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <19990223220438.C216@localhost> from "Mark Ovens" at Feb 23, 99 10:04:38 pm
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> > In a sense, the GPL world is depending on > > the honor of those who it is most destructive. > > This confirms what I thought. The GPL and Berkeley-style licence > work more through a "Gentlemens Agreement" than the threat of a > law suit and, as another poster pointed out, a PR disaster if, for > example, FreeBSD were to hijack GPL code and release it under a > Berkeley-style licence. > > None of this of course is protection against M$ taking a Linux or > FreeBSD distribution and releasing it with an M$ logo (Minux or > Winux?) under their EULA. The bad PR is hardly likely to concern > them. After all everyone slags off M$ anyway, so a bit more isn't > going to make any difference. This is actually false. The FSF has filed suit against an RC5 library, in hopes of weakening the patent protection, for inclusion of a glue layer specifically designed to interact with GPL'ed code. The resoloution was to make a library that wasn't GPL'ed to the GPL'ed libraries interface, to make the glue code non-specific. The FSF has filed suit on two occasions on behalf of SAMBA, based on commercial incorporation of SAMBA code, with modification, into commercial products. The FSF has a pool of money for sueing people set aside and all ready to go, with a specific emphasis on corporations who, god help them, release code that includes patented algorithms or processes under the GPL. RMS hates intellectual property law, period. He will use his instrument (the GPL) to make his manifesto reality, at any reasonable opportunity. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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