From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262901AbTLLXHH (ORCPT ); Fri, 12 Dec 2003 18:07:07 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262965AbTLLXHH (ORCPT ); Fri, 12 Dec 2003 18:07:07 -0500 Received: from mail.jlokier.co.uk ([81.29.64.88]:34435 "EHLO mail.shareable.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262901AbTLLXHE (ORCPT ); Fri, 12 Dec 2003 18:07:04 -0500 Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 23:06:48 +0000 From: Jamie Lokier To: Andre Hedrick Cc: Pavel Machek , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause? Message-ID: <20031212230648.GC15935@mail.shareable.org> References: <20031212194004.GB465@elf.ucw.cz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Andre Hedrick wrote: > You do not get a lawsuit if you have ownership of the code you are > submitting. Why should you worry if ethics of good code and content is > never in question. On the Bochs mailing list, someone just asked, paraphrased: "I read an idea in the Bochs source code (which is GPL) and implemented the same idea in another program. The other code is not a copy, I wrote it myself, but it does have some structural similarity. Is the code I wrote a derived work of Bochs which I read and got the idea, thus requiring me to release my code under the GPL?". My point is that sometimes you write something and you _just don't know_ if you "own" the code that you wrote, because you don't know how tainted you are by other things that you have read, seen, heard etc. - in someone else's opinion. When it comes to $1bn lawsuits, someone else's opinion counts more than your own - and you don't know what it's going to be. I do not want to be subject to a potential $1bn lawsuit for something I didn't know I was doing. I may be 99.999% confident I'm doing the right thing even by other people's standards, but in an industry where suing is the modern way to "innovate", I'd much rather work with people whose license and social norms puts the risk where it's most appropriate: with whoever is making money selling stuff and offering to take on that risk as part of the fee. This is one thing the GPL got right. Restricting development _only_ to professional programmers with indemnity insurance is not the way to build a vibrant free software community. -- Jamie