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Open is Open.

Posted Nov 10, 2005 15:25 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (guest, #14462)
In reply to: Open is Open. by paulj
Parent article: Debian and Nexenta collide

E.g. the GPL does not allow linkage to/from closed code, an issue for drivers.

I think one of the reasons people do not easily put all their trust in Sun, is because of this kind of reasoning. Binary-only drivers are of course generally frowned upon in the Free Software world, but there's nothing that prevents you from getting things working: Linux has a long history with these drivers.

Obviously, things are quite a bit more complicated for a company such as Sun, but I'm quite sure that exactly this point would have convinced a lot of skeptics of Sun's good intentions. It is after all an essential aspect of Free Software.

Off-topic remark: excellent discussion, gentlemen. Thanks. ;-)


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