Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 11:29:50 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: Hiten Pandya <hitmaster2k@yahoo.com>, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>, FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: IBM suing (was: RMS Suing was [SUGGESTION] - JFS for FreeBSD) Message-ID: <20011214112950.N3448@monorchid.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <3C186EA5.4EA87656@mindspring.com> References: <20011212105559.19177.qmail@web21103.mail.yahoo.com> <3C17482C.3792DAA9@mindspring.com> <20011213115519.F3448@monorchid.lemis.com> <3C18472F.DD3A90D5@mindspring.com> <20011213165513.D3448@monorchid.lemis.com> <3C186EA5.4EA87656@mindspring.com>
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On Thursday, 13 December 2001 at 1:02:29 -0800, Terry Lambert wrote: > Greg Lehey wrote: >> I know that things have changed since you were IBM. I still find it >> difficult to think that they have changed as much as would be >> necessary to explain the discrepancy between your viewpoint and my >> experience. > > I left IBM a year ago last September. > > When IBM acquired Whistle, they DEMANDED that we remove SQUID, which > was planned to be in the next release of the software for the next > generation product, as it infringed 5 IBM patents, and they did not > want to grant license to use those patents, royalty free, by shipping > a product with SQUID on it. For some definition of IBM. > I think perhaps some of the discrepancy is that you live in a > country which does not recognize software patents the way the > U.S. does. No, I work for the IBM Linux Technology Center. Our rules are formulated in the USA. >>> See also the IBM guidelines for the use of Open Source in IBM >>> products, >> >> Been there, done that. Your point? > > <snip> > > My point is that IBM is backing Linux and the GPL purely for > marketing reasons, not legal or technical reasons. Of course. Does that worry you? IBM is a commercial company. Nearly all its decisions are based on marketing input. >> I don't know the exact wording of the GPL, but I can't see any >> deviation here. Yes, the original code is proprietary. But we are >> most definitely talking an open source license, even if it's one you >> don't like. > > Big deal. It's not commercially useful, even interally to IBM, > for anything other than marketing blather. > > For the same reasons, a GPL'ed JFS port to FreeBSD would not be > commercially useful, except as IBM/Linux marketing blather. Why not? > As an overall business philosophy aside: frankly, I don't buy your > unified view of IBMs motivations; from my personal experience, > business units competed more than they cooperated, and IBM was > rarely unified on anything: it's not a single-minded entity. No company of that size can be completely unified. My understanding, though, is that IBM is trying to reduce competition between the business units, not maintain it. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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