[K12OSN] Scary article from Russia (w/o love)
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
Wed May 20 14:30:05 UTC 2009
Terrell Prude' Jr. wrote:
>
>
> Les Mikesell wrote:
>> Terrell Prude' Jr. wrote:
>>> Conrad,
>>>
>>> "Free" doesn't refer to price when we refer to free software.
>>> Rather, it refers to freedom. Think RHEL here.
>>>
>>> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
>>
>> And there is a serious problem with this when you would like to be
>> free to make your own choice about individual components and the GPL
>> prevents anything with different restrictions from being included in a
>> single work.
>>
>
> Huh?
How do you propose that any existing technology covered by
GPL-incompatible restrictions be combined in a single program with
anything covered by the GPL? It can't - and you are forced to exclude
one or the other. In cases covered only by copyright, there is the
possibility of duplicating the work, but you can't do that with patents.
Look at it this way: How many software patents are there? That's how
many things can never be included in the Linux kernel unless someone
arranges unlimited free distribution rights for each covered item. And
this is regardless of the reasonableness of the terms of the patent or
your own choices about the value vs. cost.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at mikesell
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