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Commitment to Open ?

Posted Mar 6, 2011 0:42 UTC (Sun) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
In reply to: Commitment to Open ? by zonker
Parent article: Commitment to Open (Red Hat News)

Sorry, no. GPL talks about passing source code if you distribute a changed version, not original source code, changes, and running commentary. So here Red Hat has historically done much more than was asked for (distributing to all comers, distributing upstream source and individual patches), now they are still doing more than strictly required. Again the ages old discussion: If you distribute your stuff under $LICENSE, you can't then complain if somebody does what said $LICENSE allows.

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Posted Mar 6, 2011 2:08 UTC (Sun) by zonker (subscriber, #7867) [Link]

"If you distribute your stuff under $LICENSE, you can't then complain if somebody does what said $LICENSE allows."

You can complain, you just can't sue.

I compare this to the recent Supreme Court decision about the WBC - the "church" has the right to do what they do under the First Amendment. They should not be jailed for it, nor barred from it. That doesn't mean that the rest of the society/community can't or shouldn't shun them.

I'd much rather see companies kept in compliance with the spirit of the license by people complaining than by trying to write licenses that dictate every community standard.

Commitment to Open ?

Posted Mar 6, 2011 2:35 UTC (Sun) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]

You can sue, you just can't win. ;) I also don't think complaining is going to win a whole lot. Companies are used to complainers.