Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755131AbXFSF7c (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:59:32 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751390AbXFSF7Z (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:59:25 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:44557 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751003AbXFSF7Y (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:59:24 -0400 To: Daniel Hazelton Cc: Linus Torvalds , Al Viro , Bernd Schmidt , Alan Cox , Ingo Molnar , 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: <200706181945.16343.dhazelton@enter.net> <200706182315.11466.dhazelton@enter.net> From: Alexandre Oliva Organization: Red Hat OS Tools Group Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 02:58:30 -0300 In-Reply-To: <200706182315.11466.dhazelton@enter.net> (Daniel Hazelton's message of "Mon\, 18 Jun 2007 23\:15\:11 -0400") 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: 2422 Lines: 52 On Jun 19, 2007, Daniel Hazelton wrote: > Actually you are in error here. You are saying "More home users == More > Developers" when the ratio of home users to developers isn't all that high. > (small set of facts: "Hacker" == "Developer" (in most cases, where the term, > as defined in the Jargon File, can actually be applied), "Home User" * 0.10 > (ie: 10%) == "Developer" (approximately, and the correlation may be > lower). "TiVO" == "Developers" (note the plural - they do employ more than > one person for development)) As I wrote in another e-mail, why makes this proportion different for the other conditions determined by the GPL? I.e., what is it that makes this particular condition so allegedly harmful for bringing in more developers and contributions, when compared with the requirements on passing on source code, licensing necessary patents, not suing other users over patent infringement in the software, not invoking anti-circumvention laws, not entering discriminatory agreements? > So "TiVO", even though they are walking all over the freedoms you love, means > more *guaranteed* developers than the potential pool from the users of their > boxes. (the pool of potential developers among the millions of TiVO users is > actually miniscule, despite the size of the sample) > However, you do make a good argument. But when you look at the statistics[1] > they don't hold water. Err... I have no idea of the actual user base of TiVo, but if it's really in the millions, and your 10% figure above is right, this makes for hundreds of thousands of hackers that could be scratching their itches and improving Linux on TiVo boxes. How many thousand employees does TiVo have working on Linux? (I realize a full-time employee is a lot more than a Joe Random Hacker, but still, I'm keeping a ratio of 100:1 to make up for that) > PS: I've beaten the addiction! Good for you! -- 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/