Warner Losh wrote:
>
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Alex
>Belits writes:
> : Your attorneys are stupid.
>
> Are they now? The GPL was designed to force companies to release
> sources. The FSF put a lot of time and effort into it so that they
> could force people to give back mods to gcc and the like. It was
> applied to a kernel and who knows what that really means. With Emacs
> or gcc it was clear where the boundaries of code where. It is less
> clear with a kernel with dynamically loadable modules. The atterneys
> stated that the risk was elevated substantially by using the GPL'd
> kernel vs using one that wasn't.
>
> The only reason that we haven't seen more lawsuits is because many
> companies cave in under the pressure, or the original authors of the
> software cannot afford atterneys to pursue the matter. IIRC, Donnald
> Becker has desired for years to bring action against certain companies
> that have taken his packet drivers, made them commercial or hacked
> them for their own boards, and not released the sources. I heard nth
> hand that this was because of lack of deep pockets to pursue them.
We finally have a situation that may test some of the legal theories
surrounding the GPL. Here's a favorite of mine: creating an embedded
product that uses GPL is dangerous, because in an embedded device that
is sold to perform a particular function, everything that supports that
function is co-dependent on everything else. If you remove a part and
the box is longer able to perform it's function, that part and all the
other parts are "derived works" of one another. I've heard several
mutterings of lawsuits along this theory, but none have yet materialized.
Here's the rub: Microsoft has licensed some little company on Ohio that
makes streaming audio servers based on Linux to include a Windows Streaming
Media server in their product. Microsoft is NOT release WSM or its protocol
to Open Source, this will be a closed embedded device. Based on the above
theory, someone could possibly sue to have the WSM server released under the
GPL.
Who might want to do this, and have deep enough pockets to pursue it? Who
in the streaming media business stands to lose the most to Microsoft, or to
gain the most by the demise of Microsoft in this arena? Whose President is
an ex-Microsoft Vice President who testified against Microsoft in Monopoly
Court? Oh, Real you say?
Remember the chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://softweyr.com/
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