Fedora Freedom and linux-libre

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 17:34 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Le Lun 30 juin 2008 17:10, Matthew Saltzman a écrit :
> >
> >
> > On Sun, 2008-06-29 at 12:42 -0400, Jesse Keating wrote:
> >> On Sun, 2008-06-29 at 12:39 -0400, Matthew Saltzman wrote:
> >> > I'm not arguing that companies that shy away from open source in
> >> general
> >> > or the GPL in particular always do so for good reasons.
> >>
> >> Where "good reason" means "gross misunderstanding of the GPL
> >> licenses
> >> and OpenSource development in general".
> >
> > This sort of fanboyism gets old in a hurry.
> >
> > The IBM/Common Public License was developed by IBM lawyers.  Are you
> > seriously suggesting that they exhibit "gross misunderstanding of the
> > GPL licenses and OpenSource [sic] development in general"?
> 
> I'd be very careful about listing IBM as counter-example to any argument.
> 
> IBM is big and diversified enough it can afford legal strategies
> others entities can not. That IBM wrote its own license says little
> about the GPL and a lot about IBM.

My point was just that there can be legitimate reasons for businesses to
be concerned about the terms of the GPL and to choose to use alternative
licenses *even for free software*.

It is certainly true that IBM can deal with those concerns in ways that
other businesses can't.  On the other hand, the number of FOSS licenses
(some well written, some not-so-well written) indicates that the
concerns exist and may not be due simply to "gross misunderstanding of
the GPL licenses and OpenSource development in general".

My original point was simply that interoperability of GPL software and
software released under a number of other FOSS licenses is hindered by
the GPL's prohibition^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H lack of permission to
distribute combined works.  Unfortunately, an all-GPL world is a utopian
dream; the real world is more complicated and more frustrating.

-- 
                Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs