Fedora philosophy (was ATI video comes out of the closet)

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Sat, 2007-09-08 at 16:09 -0700, Craig White wrote:
> On Sat, 2007-09-08 at 17:12 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> > There is such a fundamental problem in general, in that the GPL 
> > restrictions prevent many useful combinations of things from being 
> > distributed even when all parties would like to give them away.  However 
> > in this case the specific problem is the lack of a stable and specified 
> > interface so a device driver can independently provide services for the 
> > kernel without either being considered a derivative or needing to 
> > revised every time the kernel is rebuilt.
> ----
> not really a problem for software where the source is available and much
> more of a problem for software that is distributed as binary only.

Oh, but it *is* a problem, even for open source.  I work on a project
licensed under the CPL.  That's open source too, but I can't distribute
prebuilt binaries of versions that link with GPL utility routines such
as getline().

You might suggest that I choose a different license, but it's not up to
me.

The really silly thing is, even the FSF doesn't think there's a major
philosophical difference.  The CPL has some restrictions regarding
patent licensing that the GPL doesn't.  The FSF description of the
incompatibility states that they don't think those restrictions are a
bad idea, but the do induce incompatibility.

> ----
> > 
> > > Obviously, Les' opinion is not a very popular one on this list but he is
> > > entitled to his opinion and it doesn't make him a bad guy.
> > 
> > GPL fanatics, like the covered code, seem to have a problem co-existing 
> > with anything else...
> ----
> And hopefully the distinctions of 'this behavior' are significantly
> improved upon by GPL v3

I haven't really investigated v3 yet.  We'll have to see if the
situation changes.

> 
> As for your specific verbiage, there's a lot of ways of saying it -
> including many that cast GPL in a favorable light. But - we've already
> had this discussion and having it again isn't going to change either of
> our opinions. 
> 
> I did want to point out that the top 2 quotations you have attributed to
> me were not mine.
> 
> Craig
> 
> 
-- 
                Matthew Saltzman

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