Les Mikesell wrote:

Peter Gordon wrote:

On Mon, 2008-06-16 at 18:42 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:

It makes sense for a company selling services[...] to apply a
restrictive license to prevent others from improving the product and
offering it in competition.


What? The GPL doesn't prevent this. It *encourages* and *enables* it.
Have you actually _read_ the GPL?...


You mean where it says, for example, that Linux and OpenSolaris can
share the best of their features? No, I missed that part.


This seems to be just trolling. GPL is hardly specific to Linux kernel
so I don't see why it would talk two such operating systems explicitly.
The licenses are incompatible due to a deliberate choice.


http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/09/msg00002.html

Even if the licenses are compatible, there are other
technological/design differences in between these operating systems (at
the kernel level) preventing that from happening easily which is
actually the major issue compared to the license.


Rahul

--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list

On Mon, 2008-06-16 at 20:59 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> You mean where it says, for example, that Linux and OpenSolaris can
> share the best of their features? No, I missed that part.

Solaris is irrelevant here: Its license is not GPL-compatible.

I'll refrain from further feeding your trolling though...
--
Peter Gordon (codergeek42)
GnuPG Public Key ID: 0xFFC19479 / Fingerprint:
DD68 A414 56BD 6368 D957 9666 4268 CB7A FFC1 9479
--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list

"Horst H. von Brand" <vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl> writes:

> Nobody can initiate legal action "on behalf of the GPL", only the kernel
> copyright holders could initiate such action here. And that would be
> ROTFLed out of court, as /they themselves/ created the kernel with the
> express, and widely documented, intention for it to be distributed widely.

Are there really no pieces of the Linux kernel source written for
purposes other than being part of the kernel, but afterwards included
in the kernel? Pieces which are licensed under the GPL, that is, not
firmware blobs. The authors of such pieces are able to initiate action
against any distributors of the Linux kernel. It's the only way we can
get a definite answer.

(It's obviously not a very productive use of everyone's time and
money, but that is often the case with lawsuits.)


/Benny


--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list

I wasn't going to argue with Les any more, but since he's reverted to
what could almost be considered a direct untruth rather than his normal
illogical and unparseable nonsense, I suppose I should point that out in
case he manages to trick anyone with it.

On Mon, 2008-06-16 at 18:34 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> if you would read the COPYING file, you'd see that there are more
> requirements for the permitted aggregations:
> "not derived from the Program"
> "reasonably considered independent and separate works".

It's somewhat misleading to refer to those as 'requirements for the
permitted aggregations', because those phrases actually form part of the
GPL's explicit description of the aggregations which are _not_
permitted.

The GPL explicitly says that it _does_ apply to sections of a collective
work which meet both of the above requirements -- sections that are both
"not derived from the Program", and "can be reasonably considered
independent and separate works in themselves.

It's not an _actual_ untruth -- strictly speaking, they _are_ part of
the requirements for the 'mere aggregation on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium' exception. But only because they're also
requirements for the stated restriction which the exception relaxes.

Of course you can't be exempted from something that didn't apply in the
first place, so that makes them requirements for the exception, too

We have something like 'if A and B, then the GPL applies. Unless C'.

Les is saying that 'A and B' are requirements for that exception.
Which in a sense they are.

But it's a bit of a disingenuous way to phrase it

--
dwmw2

--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list

David Woodhouse wrote:

I wasn't going to argue with Les any more, but since he's reverted to
what could almost be considered a direct untruth rather than his normal
illogical and unparseable nonsense, I suppose I should point that out in
case he manages to trick anyone with it.

On Mon, 2008-06-16 at 18:34 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:

if you would read the COPYING file, you'd see that there are more
requirements for the permitted aggregations:
"not derived from the Program"
"reasonably considered independent and separate works".


It's somewhat misleading to refer to those as 'requirements for the
permitted aggregations', because those phrases actually form part of the
GPL's explicit description of the aggregations which are _not_
permitted.


As the rest of the sentence continues to say "then this License, and its
terms, do not apply to those sections" I think you are one being
misleading here. There is some room for disagreement on the
separateness but not about whether aggregations are permitted when those
specified conditions are met.


Here's the whole thing in context since you seem to be incapable of
finding it in the thousands of COPYING files you must have:


"If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works."


So, the only reasonable issue is whether something that originated
elsewhere with its only purpose being to drop into specific separate
pieces of hardware is 'separate', even though it is temporarily encoded
into the same file as some GPL'd material.


--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@gmail.com


--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list

On Tue, 2008-06-17 at 07:47 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> As the rest of the sentence continues to say "then this License, and its
> terms, do not apply to those sections" I think you are one being
> misleading here. There is some room for disagreement on the
> separateness but not about whether aggregations are permitted when those
> specified conditions are met.
>
> Here's the whole thing in context since you seem to be incapable of
> finding it in the thousands of COPYING files you must have:
>
> "If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
> and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
> themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
> sections when you distribute them as separate works."

That part is a simple statement of copyright law. as a prelude to what
comes next. As it says, the GPL doesn't even _apply_ to those parts when
you distribute them separately. How could it? The GPL only operates by
giving you back permissions which copyright law took from you -- and the
GPL _cannot_ apply to those parts, when you distribute them as separate
works.

But you seem to have 'accidentally' cut out the next sentence of the
same paragraph:
"...as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote
it."

Or are you trying to make the incredible claim that in fact, the
firmware embedded somewhere in a bzImage file -- where we can't even
find it to extract it -- _is_ being distributed as a separate work,
rather than as a part of a whole which is based on the kernel?

If so, you would have to be _very_ deluded. That's almost as silly as
the 'but we _like_ to use hex editors on our kernel, so we _are_
providing it in the preferred form for modification' defence.

--
dwmw2

--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list

* David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org> [20080617 15:22]:
[snip]

Sounds to me like the argument circles around some warped
interpretations of the conundrum if a hamburger in a cardboard box is
a piece of the box or if it in fact, is a hamburger that can be eaten
separately without having to eat the box too...

Enjoy!

--
Anders

--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list

On Tue, 2008-06-17 at 15:36 +0200, Anders Karlsson wrote:
> Sounds to me like the argument circles around some warped
> interpretations of the conundrum if a hamburger in a cardboard box is
> a piece of the box or if it in fact, is a hamburger that can be eaten
> separately without having to eat the box too...

The analogy is slightly closer if you say 'bun' instead of 'box'. You're
_intended_ to eat it all together, as a single unit. That's why they're
combined together like that.

But even then it's not quite right, because you _could_ separate those
two if you tried. It's more like the horrid icky relish crap that you
try to scape off, but you never manage to remove all of it...

--
dwmw2

--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list

Anders Karlsson wrote:

* David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org> [20080617 15:22]:
[snip]

Sounds to me like the argument circles around some warped
interpretations of the conundrum if a hamburger in a cardboard box is
a piece of the box or if it in fact, is a hamburger that can be eaten
separately without having to eat the box too...

No. It's more along the lines of having a cheeseburger with lettuce,
tomatoes, and onions in a carboard box. The box is the medium in which
the cheeseburger is distributed. But are the pieces inside merely
aggregated together or are they part of a single work? After all, you
can take the cheeseburger apart and consume the bun, the burger, the
lettuce, etc separately (or not at all). But the person who prepared it
and distributed it to you didn't intend for that to happen.


-Toshio "who will go back to ignoring this thread now" Kuratomi

--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list

On Tue, 2008-06-17 at 15:36 +0200, Anders Karlsson wrote:
> * David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org> [20080617 15:22]:
> [snip]
>
> Sounds to me like the argument circles around some warped
> interpretations of the conundrum if a hamburger in a cardboard box is
> a piece of the box or if it in fact, is a hamburger that can be eaten
> separately without having to eat the box too...
>

Actually, the whole argument (and this thread) is more like a sh*t
sandwich[1].

If there is really a legal problem with the kernel including firmware,
it seems like it would be much better discussed on lkml, a -legal list
somewhere, or somewhere in the FSF realm.

I'll go back to lurking now
Brian


[1] Not to be confused with Spinal Tap's "Shark Sandwich"

> Enjoy!
>
> --
> Anders
>

--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list