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Protecting BitMover's livelyhoodProtecting BitMover's livelyhoodPosted Sep 26, 2004 15:54 UTC (Sun) by Felix.Braun (subscriber, #3032)In reply to: An Interview with Tom Lord of Arch (O'ReillyNet) by lm Parent article: An Interview with Tom Lord of Arch (O'ReillyNet)
Anybody who has followed Linux kernel development for the past couple of years must be convinced that your company has developed a highly capable tool by looking at the evidence provided in the form of the high quality kernel releases (which was probably exactly the effect you intended). Irrespective of your legitimate commercial intentions, the way you chose to promote your product has greatly benefitted the FLOSS community by increasing the kernel maintainers' productivity. You deserve to be applauded for this. Patents probably would have been a better choice for protection but remember that I had a goal of helping Linus, and there was little chance that he would adopt a patented technology. However, it seems to me that you take Linus to be more stupid than he is. Do you really think that he would have rejected a patented technology just because they are EVILTM, but he would tolerate a sales practice that achieves the same effects? If he accepts BitMover's decision not to grant a free license to developers who intend to develop a free alternative, maybe he would not have rejected BK as a tool even if it included patented technology.
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