Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757546AbXFOCWm (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:22:42 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753962AbXFOCWf (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:22:35 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:48805 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753206AbXFOCWe (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:22:34 -0400 To: Ingo Molnar Cc: Alan Cox , Daniel Hazelton , Linus Torvalds , Greg KH , debian developer , david@lang.hm, Tarkan Erimer , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton Subject: Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3 References: <466A3EC6.6030706@netone.net.tr> <200706132121.04532.dhazelton@enter.net> <200706132304.21984.dhazelton@enter.net> <20070614112329.3645c397@the-village.bc.nu> <20070614103846.GA7902@elte.hu> <20070614195517.GA4933@elte.hu> <20070614235004.GA14952@elte.hu> From: Alexandre Oliva Organization: Red Hat OS Tools Group Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:21:59 -0300 In-Reply-To: <20070614235004.GA14952@elte.hu> (Ingo Molnar's message of "Fri\, 15 Jun 2007 01\:50\:04 +0200") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.990 (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: 2189 Lines: 58 On Jun 14, 2007, Ingo Molnar wrote: > the GPLv2 license says no such thing, and you seem to be mighty confused > about how software licenses work. > the GPL applies to software. It is a software license. > the Tivo box is a piece of hardware. > a disk is put into it with software copied to it already: a bootloader, > a Linux kernel plus a handful of applications. The free software bits > are available for download. > the Tivo box is another (copyrighted) work, a piece of hardware. > so how can, in your opinion, the hardware that Tivo produces, "take > away" some right that the user has to the GPL-ed software? Consider egg yolk and egg shells. I produce egg yolk. I give it to you under terms that say "if you pass this on, you must do so in such a way that doesn't stop anyone from eating it" You produce egg shells. You carefully construct your shell around the egg yolk and some white you got from a liberal third party. Then you sell the egg shells, with white and yolk inside, under contracts that specify "the shell must be kept intact, it can't be broken or otherwise perforated". Are you or are you not disrespecting the terms that apply to the yolk? > by your argument, the user has some "right to modify the software", on > that piece of hardware it bought which had free software on it, correct? Yes. This means the hardware distributor who put the software in there must not place roadblocks that impede the user to get where she wants with the software, not that the vendor must offer the user a sport car to take her there. The goal is not to burden the vendor. The goal is to stop the vendor from artificially burdening the user. -- 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/