One-sided debate [LWN.net]

One-sided debate

Posted Jun 23, 2007 7:41 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: One-sided debate by dlang
Parent article: More quotes of the week - scenes from a flame war

saing that it's to get them jobs is beyond reason

Why, exactly? It is natural to push your product as a developer, and even more as a free software developer. It has the lucky consequence of helping developers get fame and good jobs, and it is perfectly respectable.

they released code under the requirement that people who modified the code and distributed it make their changes available.

The code is released under a lot of requirements, they are collectively called "GPL license" and they are preceded by a little preamble that says, among other things: "By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users". The goal of the license is to allow users the same freedoms as developers, and these include the ability to run modified copies of the software.

TiVo is clearly not complying with the spirit of the license, even if many developers are OK with this particular use of their code. I gather from the LWN quotes that this particular point is not under discussion.

especially becouse they didn't lock down their first products, the lockdowns started happening later.

Then it should read "Linux is still used in TiVo only because it can be locked down". Linux wasn't selected because it could be locked down, but if it could not, TiVo would have probably selected some other OS (and probably proprietary). I think that the meaning is clear enough.

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One-sided debate

Posted Jun 23, 2007 8:45 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]

please go read the entire thread rather then trying to re-hash it here.

if there's something that wasn't said (and replied to) multiple times in the thread then bring it up.

but don't claim that becouse someone uses a license they support everything that the person who wrote the license supports.

One-sided debate

Posted Jun 23, 2007 21:35 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

please go read the entire thread rather then trying to re-hash it here.

Thanks, I prefer to keep my virginal mind out of lkml flamefests. That way I can rehash old tired lines (to lkml) as if they were fresh, novel arguments (to me).

but don't claim that becouse someone uses a license they support everything that the person who wrote the license supports.

If you read carefully you will appreciate that I have not claimed such a thing, or even close.