Date: 13 Dec 2001 12:57:14 -0800 From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: IBM suing (was: RMS Suing was [SUGGESTION] - JFS for FreeBSD) Message-ID: <1id71idej9.71i@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <3C1875D6.5DE4F996@mindspring.com> References: <3C186381.6AB07090@yahoo.com> <3C1875D6.5DE4F996@mindspring.com>
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Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> writes: > 5) Use an alternate boot partition of a different FS type > (e.g. FAT32 or FFS), and load the JFS module from there. > o This is harder than option #3, since it requires > minimally that union mounts work, since mounts > over mount points before the kernel is booted > can't work, and therefore for your / to be JFS, > it will have to be mounted over top of the boot /, > which would be non-JFS. Maybe the JFS4FBSD developer could replace the boot loader with one which works rather like LILO and gets the kernel, the JFS module, and whatever else it needs from a pre-prepared non-FS image which the loader can read without FS support. Even harder to argue that this is mere common storage and not a linked program. > This is legally risky, if Greg is right, and the > intent was to prevent commercial use of the code, > since you defeat their intent. This mantra isn't quite correct (though the first clause is). IBM doesn't use use the GPL to prevent commercial use of the code because the GPL can't do that. (They might use it to discourage such use; successfully, no doubt.) But others can write JFS improvements and use it commercially. They just can't do it if they keep their own code closed. The intent here is to discourage people from writing closed code and I'm not sure courts would determine that to be a valid implied contract term. One could argue that the intent is simply to stop people from using the GPLed code with closed code, but the GPL doesn't do that. There are explicitly GPL-authorized ways to use the JFS code with closed code (eg, a closed application library). No, discussion of intent doesn't get one very far; one must return to the words of the GPL to descover which uses are licensed. (Can a JFS be considered an application or must it be part of the OS? Big database applications used to come with their own FSs.) The GPL is used to prevent any use of the code in certain ways with closed-source code. Programs that talk via TCP, RPC or CORBA are OK to distribute without contamination worries. What MUST be worried about is contained in the words of the license and the understandings of the parties to the license contract. The GPL is quite explicit in what it covers. I doubt that a fair court would suffer much talk of intent to prevent boot-time linking or whatever. Of course, it depends on who's lawyer the court most admires too. A final argument I need to think more about is this: If the GPL doesn't explicitly license the boot- or run-time linking of a JFS module, then there is no meeting of the minds and thus the use is not licensed. Hmm. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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