Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3

Alexandre Oliva
2007-06-14T20:50:59Z

On Jun 14, 2007, Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> wrote:

> * Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@redhat.com> wrote:

> you are not "entitled" to dictate the hardware's design (or any other
> copyrighted work's design),

Agreed.

> By your argument we'd have to put the following items into the
> license too:

No, you're confusing two very different situations.

In the case of TiVO, it's getting out of its way to make sure users
can't enjoy one of the freedoms that the license says it ought to pass
on.

In the cases you mentioned, the company would have to get out of its
way to put the other parties on equal grounds.

The former is bad, it's against the spirit of the license, it's a
further restriction.

The latter would be nice to have, but it would be wrong to demand it.

You're picturing the difference between blocking the way such that you
can't get there, and actually taking you there. What the GPL seeks is
just that you don't get in the way.

--
Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}