Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1423108AbXBPEAc (ORCPT ); Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:00:32 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1423120AbXBPEAc (ORCPT ); Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:00:32 -0500 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:51694 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1423108AbXBPEAb (ORCPT ); Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:00:31 -0500 To: Jeff Garzik Cc: "Michael K. Edwards" , v j , Theodore Tso , Dave Jones , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers References: <9b3a62ab0702142115m4ea7d2c0m6869eb64ef3ee14e@mail.gmail.com> <9b3a62ab0702142116n4069e16cl1bc8f546f41d935@mail.gmail.com> <20070215061149.GE15654@redhat.com> <9b3a62ab0702142227j19386132s870a0e745cfbb8d1@mail.gmail.com> <20070215165339.GB5285@thunk.org> <9b3a62ab0702151020k5bd0e4c9w763e1b01288ccc4f@mail.gmail.com> <45D4DCE3.9070002@garzik.org> <45D4FCC7.2090206@garzik.org> From: Alexandre Oliva Organization: Red Hat OS Tools Group Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 02:00:16 -0200 In-Reply-To: <45D4FCC7.2090206@garzik.org> (Jeff Garzik's message of "Thu\, 15 Feb 2007 19\:37\:27 -0500") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.93 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1436 Lines: 34 On Feb 15, 2007, Jeff Garzik wrote: > Michael K. Edwards wrote: >> On 2/15/07, Jeff Garzik wrote: >>> The /whole point/ of the GPL is to funnel contributions back. >> Bzzzt. The whole point of the GPL is to "guarantee your freedom to >> share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for >> all its users." > No, that's the FSF marketing fluff you've been taught to recite. The same FSF that wrote the GPL, no less ;-) > In the context of the Linux kernel, I'm referring to the original > reason why Linus chose the GPL for the Linux kernel. If he chose it for this reason, he chose the wrong license. The GPL does not funnel contributions back. It doesn't even require anyone to make contributions: you're free to keep your improvements only to yourself. And even if you distribute them, you can choose whom to distribute it to, and that might very well leave the 'back' out. -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} - 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/