Hi Ico,
(my
research so far has led me to Steinberg's headquarters in Germany, as
apparently Yamaha has nothing to do with it).
Not only does Yamaha own Steinberg, but they put one of their own people
in as managing director:
http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=30483
So although Steinberg is notionally an independent company within the
Yamaha group, it's quite likely the MD of Steinberg is familiar with the
work funded by Yamaha to make mLAN work on Linux. I doubt the Korg Oasys
has escaped the attention of any Japanese keyboard instrument maker either.
Having said that, there is at least one existing VST on Linux
implementation that uses a proprietary application layer, so from
Steinberg's viewpoint the current SDK licence is perhaps not a
problematic one.
I think the best way to tackle this is 'please help us find a way to
ship VST support in these new exciting applications' rather than 'we
want you to support free software' or 'we demand you change the licence
of your software'. After all, it's their code to licence as they see fit.
Cheers!
Daniel