Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause?

Jamie Lokier
2003-12-12T23:07:07Z

Andre Hedrick wrote:
> You do not get a lawsuit if you have ownership of the code you are
> submitting. Why should you worry if ethics of good code and content is
> never in question.

On the Bochs mailing list, someone just asked, paraphrased: "I read an
idea in the Bochs source code (which is GPL) and implemented the same
idea in another program. The other code is not a copy, I wrote it
myself, but it does have some structural similarity. Is the code I
wrote a derived work of Bochs which I read and got the idea, thus
requiring me to release my code under the GPL?".

My point is that sometimes you write something and you _just don't
know_ if you "own" the code that you wrote, because you don't know how
tainted you are by other things that you have read, seen, heard etc. -
in someone else's opinion.

When it comes to $1bn lawsuits, someone else's opinion counts more
than your own - and you don't know what it's going to be.

I do not want to be subject to a potential $1bn lawsuit for something
I didn't know I was doing. I may be 99.999% confident I'm doing the
right thing even by other people's standards, but in an industry where
suing is the modern way to "innovate", I'd much rather work with
people whose license and social norms puts the risk where it's most
appropriate: with whoever is making money selling stuff and offering
to take on that risk as part of the fee.

This is one thing the GPL got right. Restricting development _only_
to professional programmers with indemnity insurance is not the way to
build a vibrant free software community.

-- Jamie