Chris Friesen wrote
| I don't think you understand the nature of the GPL and linux development.
What a presumptuous opening statement!
| The kernel developers do not have any obligation to anything other than
| technical excellence. You're getting a highly optimized operating
| system *at no financial cost*. In return, the community requires that
| certain types of modifications be made publicly available.
Yes, many companies from time to time feed smaller or larger contributions
back into the community.
But they don't usually release *all* their modifications because they just
might be irrelevant to everyone but a small niche of enterprise users.
| If you want to replace the messaging code, make a GPL'd kernel patch and
| make it available to your clients (of course they can then publish it
| all over the place if they so desire). If those terms are not
| acceptable, there's always BSD.
It doesn't quite work that way. Big name distributors (e.g. Suse, Redhat)
usually supply
and support big customers with Linux distributions. Third parties usually
supply modules.
Integration of the two is demanded by the customer, so it's not our choice
to
use BSD or ask the end users that our patches be applied and their kernels
recompiled.
Certainly patches can be rolled out but it's a costly proposition
(especially to customers)
and requires a level of expertise and commitment on the part of the
customers that
may not be available.
Nearly every storage or networking startup that uses Linux (hundreds of them
exist)
has tried to find hooks into the filesystems or network stacks, within the
constraints
of modules and GPL. It isn't always easy to insert oneself where we want
but they have found interesting solutions and work-arounds whether or not on
the
legal grounds are shaky.
All I said was that it's good to make life easier for these startups.
S.N.
On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 12:23:03PM -0400, Slavcho Nikolov wrote:
> Chris Friesen wrote
> | I don't think you understand the nature of the GPL and linux development.
>
> What a presumptuous opening statement!
It is a statement of opinion based on proximate evidence and
was phrased as such. Only a statement of fact not in
evidence could have been presumptuous. You could persuade
us that he is wrong by showing us your applicable
understanding.
> | The kernel developers do not have any obligation to anything other than
> | technical excellence. You're getting a highly optimized operating
> | system *at no financial cost*. In return, the community requires that
> | certain types of modifications be made publicly available.
>
> Yes, many companies from time to time feed smaller or larger contributions
> back into the community.
> But they don't usually release *all* their modifications because they just
> might be irrelevant to everyone but a small niche of enterprise users.
That is obviously untrue or a complete misunderstanding.
Even the tiniest, most specialized patch is more relevant
than a spelling error in a comment or some crook from
Nigeria asking for access to our bank accounts. If the
patches are really irrelevant then it won't matter to you if
they are publicly available. Maybe they won't seem so
irrelevant to someone else.
There would be little objection to their posting these
irrelevant modifications here. The GPL only requires that
they be made available. Stick them somewhere on your web
site with an obscure link pointing to them.
Irrelevance is no reason not to share patches. Shamefully
bad code i can see not sharing, but such bad code shouldn't
be in a commercial offering. The only reason not to share
commercially viable patches is the same reason the Linux
kernel is GPL.
Pay the price (free code) or shop somewhere else. With GPL
that is _your_ choice.
--
________________________________________________________________
J.W. Schultz Pegasystems Technologies
email address: [email protected]
Remember Cernan and Schmitt
On Thu, 2002-10-24 at 00:59, jw schultz wrote:
> There would be little objection to their posting these
> irrelevant modifications here. The GPL only requires that
> they be made available. Stick them somewhere on your web
> site with an obscure link pointing to them.
<nitpick>
IANAL but AFAIK the GPL V2 requires you to either distribute the
source/patch together with the binary or include a *written* obligation
valid for three years to supply the sources to any thrid party.
So, for example, if you disribute the binary on a CD, or some embedded
device, sticking the patch somewhere on your web site with an obscure
link pointing to them is technicaly a violation of the GPL.
But as I said, this is just nitpicking... :-)
</nitpick>
--
Gilad Ben-Yossef <[email protected]>
http://benyossef.com
"Geeks rock bands cool name #8192: RAID against the machine"
On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, Slavcho Nikolov wrote:
>...
> Yes, many companies from time to time feed smaller or larger contributions
> back into the community.
> But they don't usually release *all* their modifications because they just
> might be irrelevant to everyone but a small niche of enterprise users.
It might be that a modification isn't of big interest for the majority of
users but:
- It might be interesting for people working in similar niches.
- E.g. several development boards are supported in the MIPS port in the
standard Linux kernel. The niche of people using them isn't very big but
this doesn't prevent the inclusion into the main kernel.
> | If you want to replace the messaging code, make a GPL'd kernel patch and
> | make it available to your clients (of course they can then publish it
> | all over the place if they so desire). If those terms are not
> | acceptable, there's always BSD.
>
> It doesn't quite work that way. Big name distributors (e.g. Suse, Redhat)
> usually supply
> and support big customers with Linux distributions. Third parties usually
> supply modules.
> Integration of the two is demanded by the customer, so it's not our choice
> to
> use BSD or ask the end users that our patches be applied and their kernels
> recompiled.
> Certainly patches can be rolled out but it's a costly proposition
> (especially to customers)
> and requires a level of expertise and commitment on the part of the
> customers that
> may not be available.
But this doesn't prevent you from releasing the source code of your module
under the terms of the GPL.
> Nearly every storage or networking startup that uses Linux (hundreds of them
> exist)
> has tried to find hooks into the filesystems or network stacks, within the
> constraints
> of modules and GPL. It isn't always easy to insert oneself where we want
> but they have found interesting solutions and work-arounds whether or not on
> the
> legal grounds are shaky.
The legal grounds become more shaky as soon as you consider that court
decisions might be different in different countries. If someone wants to
sue you he might have the possibility to choose between different
countries where he wants to sue you... 8)
> All I said was that it's good to make life easier for these startups.
> S.N.
cu
Adrian
--
"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed