Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 01:41:32 +0530 (IST) From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: Arun Sharma <adsharma@sharmas.dhs.org>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: On "intelligent people" and "dangers to BSD" Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.20.0003220133470.1180-100000@theory1.physics.iisc.ernet.in> In-Reply-To: <200003211925.MAA02448@usr06.primenet.com>
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> > Dunno about lawyers but the GPL nowhere insists that you must > > redistribute -- only that if you do so, it must be under the GPL. > > It is my understanding that IBM bought Whistle instead of Cobalt > because of fears of the GPL resulting in dillution of their > patent portfolio. That may be true but we were talking of the claim that if A gives software to B under the GPL, A must also give the software to anyone else who asks for it. That is not true. However, as you say, anyone who receives the binaries can demand the source code. And nothing stops employees of B with access to the code from redistributing it if they choose to. So yes, IBM may have been worried about leakage of their IP, and moreover they wouldn't have wanted to mix GPL'd code with their own. > > More recently, Hans Reiser makes it clear that he plans to > > dual-license ReiserFS in some way, GPL for linux and commercial > > licence for commercial vendors who may be interested, I think he > > I think he is going to have a hard time with this, considering > that his code utilizes the USL Delayed Ordered Writes patent, > without license. > > This is like "Lesstif", which used the Motif header files and so > on; it is my opinion that if Lesstif ever posed a revenue threat > to OSF, that they would be well within their rights to stop it That's interesting to know, and it will also be interesting to see whether such problems or litigation do arise in the near future, given the platitudes everyone's now heaping on the merits of the "open source movement". To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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