[IP] more on 'A lawyer who is also idealist - how refreshing'

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Robbert Haarman <interesting-people@inglorion.net>
Date: March 30, 2006 4:47:41 PM EST
To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: Re: [IP] 'A lawyer who is also idealist - how refreshing'



> > Manufacturers of embedded systems have a strong incentive to play
> > along. As Moglen points out: "What they want is a very robust,
> > highly debugged, completely stable, omni-competent, zero dollars
> > per unit software platform for agile manufacture of devices in the
> > future." Only one meets all those requirements: GNU/Linux.

I don't think that's true. The BSDs are similar to GNU/Linux in
features, but come with a much more liberal license. If manufacturers,
for whatever reason, take issue with the terms of the new GPL, they
might well switch. They could still leverage a large part of the
expertise they have with GNU/Linux, and they would still have a "robust,
highly debugged, completely stable, omni-competent, zero dollars per
unit software platform for agile manufacture of devices." The main
difference would be that the BSD license allows them to do pretty much
anything they please in whatever way they please, including the
inclusion of closed-source DRM software that may not be circumvented by
users.

Regards,

Bob

---
An astronaut in space in 1970 was asked by a reporter, "How do you  
feel?"

"How would you feel," the astronout replied, "if you were stuck here, on
top of 20,000 parts each one supplied by the lowest engineering bidder?"

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