From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S266578AbUJAWiu (ORCPT ); Fri, 1 Oct 2004 18:38:50 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S266680AbUJAWgn (ORCPT ); Fri, 1 Oct 2004 18:36:43 -0400 Received: from c7ns3.center7.com ([216.250.142.14]:44940 "EHLO smtp.slc03.viawest.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S266748AbUJAWaP (ORCPT ); Fri, 1 Oct 2004 18:30:15 -0400 Message-ID: <415DD1ED.6030101@drdos.com> Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 15:53:49 -0600 From: "Jeff V. Merkey" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040510 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: jonathan@jonmasters.org Cc: "jmerkey@comcast.net" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Possible GPL Violation of Linux in Amstrad's E3 Videophone References: <100120041740.9915.415D967600014EC2000026BB2200758942970A059D0A0306@comcast.net> <35fb2e590410011509712b7d1@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <35fb2e590410011509712b7d1@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Jon Masters wrote: >>Then anyone who uses the code in a commerical enterprise will be required to get a >>license, and you can actually do something about it. >> >> > >They have a license. If they distribute products then they are bound >by the terms of the GPL and this is a pretty obvious license. > > > Try enforcing it in court when they get a dozen of their engineers to lie and state they reviewed the code on one terminal and converted it by writing new code on another. There's no moral anything with some of these big companies and their employees will say whatever they have to. I've been there, in the real world, all GPL means is you are giving away your IP to whomever is running whatever effort and you have little recourse. The GPL is tough to enforce the way its worded for individuals. There's too much wiggle room for people to use. Alan Cox in a previous email basically stated, " they are being nice and answering emails." Doesn't look like it takes much for these people to smooch and kiss up to folks. They will always come back to the table like foxes from the henhouse, with chicken feathers all over their lips saying "show me the chickens." >>Oops. Too late. Linux has a huge trail of everyone's code under the GPL so you cannot >>re-release the code under another license unless the entire code base is re-written. >> >> > >Pretty cool stuff huh? > > Yep. Jeff