Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore [LWN.net]

Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

Posted Oct 21, 2010 20:14 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore by martinfick
Parent article: Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

"1 : one that possesses, owns, or holds exclusive right to something; specifically : proprietor"

An accurate description of copyright. Linux is copyrighted, therefor linux is proprietary.

Same for Red Hat :-)

Cheers,
Wol

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Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

Posted Oct 21, 2010 20:27 UTC (Thu) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]

While I know your post was likely meant to be humorous, you are forgetting about the effect of the GPL which effectively makes it no longer an exclusive right, and hence not proprietary despite being copyrighted.

I may own a thing at first, but if I donate it to the public, I no longer own it. Free/Libre software has been donated to the public. In the X/BSD copyright case, it primarily serves to remove liability from the donor. The copyright in the GPL case additionally serves to ensure that it stays public and is not homesteaded. In neither case does the copyright serve to retain exclusive right to the software.