[linux-audio-dev] New form of GPL licence that protects Linux from proprietary world [was: New powermacs?]

Thomas Hudson thomas_hudson at mac.com
Mon Jun 23 11:44:02 UTC 2003


On Sunday, June 22, 2003, at 10:46 AM, Ivica Bukvic wrote:
>
> Not a _specific_ OS. There are _many_ open-source OS's out there and
> none of them have monopolistic agenda like Apple or M$. Nor do they use
> the open-source community efforts to promote their own commercial
> products.

It is important to note some of Apple's contributions to the open 
source community besides darwin. Several compiler and debugger 
engineers that I worked with at Cygnus Solutions before it was bought 
by Red Hat now work at Apple. These people work full time on gcc and 
gdb and all contributions go back to these projects. Optimizations and 
improvements for the PPC architecture in gcc and gdb benefits Linux on 
that platform as much as Apple. The html rendering engine of Apple's 
Safari browser is based on Konquerer, and the improvements Apple made 
are being contributed back to the project.

So where do you draw the line? Companies that don't contribute to open 
source? Companies that sell anything proprietary (which would eliminate 
Red Hat, check the licensing on some of their high end products). And 
if you want to punish M$, nothing is more powerful than the GPL. That 
license terrifies them.

  The beauty of the GPL is that it is blind like justice. Free means 
always and forever free.

Thomas




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