Re: kernel 2.6.8 pwc patches and counterpatches

[Thomas Winischhofer <thomas@winischhofer.net>]

Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>>A license is a license. We can't just obey a single driver's author's 
>>daily mood. (And for those who don't know: IAAL. Fact.)
> 
> 
> Since you are a lawyer you know what "moral rights" are. And since you
> know what those are, I assume you did the same research about moral
> rights in the Netherlands (the country the PWC work was created) as I
> did and noticed that this issue isn't as black and white as you claim in
> your simplification I quoted above... 

See, I know very well what "moral rights" are. But I am having a hard 
time seeing your point here.

Stating that things aren't just black or white gains us nothing in this 
discussion. This is like saying "you might be right, but you might also 
be wrong".

But the fact that this is a response to my previous statement, I take it 
you don't share my opinion.

Well, here is how I see things:

The GPL is the legal AND "moral" "glue" of the Linux kernel. It is the 
basis of our cooperation, and it defines our relation to the user.

A license is a contract. A contract is a *mutual* agreement on rights 
and obligations.

I am pretty sure, even the Netherlands rate "pacta sunt servanda" (as a 
"moral" law since at least stone age as well as a written law since the 
Roman empire) above obeying a child's immediate overreaction to a more 
or less painless slap on his rear. Even on a morality scale since "law" 
in any regard in the end is the result from a common "moral" of a society.

I confess, I did not study dutch law. Neither did I study nigerian, 
indonesian, or mexcian law in the very regard. But I know at least that 
dutch law is based on a mixture of old german and roman law (if Hugo 
Grotius wasn't entirely wrong). And both of these, I did study, and 
assume that the principles still apply.

If things are handled differently in the Netherlands, please educate me. 
Honestly, I am willing to learn.

Again, no personal offence intended. Any emphasis for the sake of clearity.

Thomas

-- 
Thomas Winischhofer
Vienna/Austria
thomas AT winischhofer DOT net          http://www.winischhofer.net/
twini AT xfree86 DOT org