A creative example of the value of free drivers [LWN.net]

A creative example of the value of free drivers

Posted Apr 4, 2008 13:11 UTC (Fri) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793)
Parent article: A creative example of the value of free drivers

It seems to me no one has commented on the point that Daniel K was actually infringing
copyright law, which could probably be seen the same as taking a Linux Kernel, patch it with
some clever hack and distributing on a web server without the source code and also requesting
donations from this (but I'm not a lawyer).

While I find Creative response was simply stupid and out of proportion, they actually have the
law on their side, and is the same law we cherish as GPL users.

Anyway, I always disliked Creative for it's crappy drivers on Windows, even if the hardware
was ok (as a non-pro user).

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A creative example of the value of free drivers

Posted Apr 4, 2008 19:57 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

I don't 'cherish' copyright law. It has to be tolerated, as the law of the 
land, but nobody says we have to *like* it. (Indeed the GPL license in 
particular is an attempt to end-run around it by producing a pool of works 
within which one can act as if copyright law did not exist beyond 'show me 
the source'.)

A creative example of the value of free drivers

Posted Apr 4, 2008 22:21 UTC (Fri) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link]

Fair enough. My selection of the "cherish" word was a bad one.

My point is only that we actually depend on the law, or we couldn't force users to "show us
the code".