Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 5 Oct 2002 11:05:12 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 5 Oct 2002 11:05:12 -0400 Received: from bitmover.com ([192.132.92.2]:27623 "EHLO mail.bitmover.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sat, 5 Oct 2002 11:05:07 -0400 Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2002 08:10:39 -0700 From: Larry McVoy To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: New BK License Problem? Message-ID: <20021005081039.Z835@work.bitmover.com> Mail-Followup-To: Larry McVoy , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <3D9EF779.4000906@hotmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i In-Reply-To: <3D9EF779.4000906@hotmail.com>; from wa1ter@hotmail.com on Sat, Oct 05, 2002 at 07:30:17AM -0700 X-MailScanner: Found to be clean Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2420 Lines: 46 I can tell that this issue isn't going away quickly so here are some thoughts. If the only thing that happens is a pile of complaints about how bad the license is, the license isn't going to change. Try and think about this from our point of view. We provide a complex yet useful product for free. While doing so accomplishes our goal of helping the kernel community, it also puts us at far greater risk that someone will just reimplement the software. Creating this software was quite difficult and we are not in the business of providing a roadmap to our competitors, they get to find their own way. If you want to suggest license changes do so showing that you understand why we did what we did and show how your changes accomplish that in a better way. Suggestions like "you guys are idiots, just GPL it and you can make money from support" just get ignored. Suggestions which increase, rather than decrease, our risk also get ignored. If someone has a magic way of saying "you can use the software if and only if your use of it does not put BitMover at financial risk" I'd love to hear it. So far, however, what I'm hearing is "your license screws me and I want you to change it". I hear your complaints, but they are just noise because they are one-sided. There are other ways to work out the problem. For example, the openlogging stuff doesn't work for researchers. We make a standard practice of providing waivers to institutions or groups who are doing pure research (not work for hire for BigFatCompany, Inc). There is no reason we can't do that for you for the non-compete clause. We're in the process of developing that language for IBM's Linux Technology Center, we can reuse it for anyone else. Unless someone can come up with language which protects us, the license stands as is. We'll do waivers for kernel developers who happen to work at Rational or whatever as needed. It's no different than dealing with patents by Red Hat or whoever, if you are concerned about it, you can ask us to make our intentions clear to you personally in writing. -- --- Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/