[U-Boot] U-book and GPLv3? (fwd)

Detlev Zundel
2009-06-24T16:34:40Z

Hi Mike,

> On Wednesday 24 June 2009 09:17:50 Detlev Zundel wrote:
>> > if you want to push your agenda on your customers (i'm assuming you
>> > actually have some and arent just here for fun), that's your business.
>>
>> Is it possible that you jump to conslusions here? All we - on a regular
>> basis - do is to talk to our customers until we understand what the
>> customer needs. Then we think about how this can or cannot be done with
>> the help of Free Software. After all nobody is forcing anyone to use
>> Free Software and for some customer wishes Free Software may simply be
>> not a legal option, so what?
>>
>> In this process it is common that customers have incomplete information
>> about Free Software in general and not well-articulated fears making
>> them jump to premature conclusions (e.g. "we need a closed source Linux
>> kernel driver") which would prevent us from doing development for them.
>> At this point it is extremely important to learn about the reasoning of
>> the customer and then clearing up confusion probably leading to
>> revisiting the question of using Free Software.
>>
>> Essentially I can only remember one customer in the last years who did
>> not go further at the time after learning that we would not develop a
>> non-GPL kernel module. Incidentally this customer is now back on our
>> doorstep because the market effectively forces him to use a GNU/Linux
>> system from a feature perspective. This time around closed sources
>> kernel modules are not even on the agenda anymore.
>
> and that's your prerogative. how you choose to run your business has no
> bearing at all on how other people choose to run their businesses.

All I said is that we have a pretty good idea of what is legal
and what isn;t and that we will not start work in an area where we
belive we could actually be liable by law. How you come to the
conclusion that this is "prerogative" completely escapes me. Are you
sure that you are interested in what I say?

>> > but when customers absolutely state their requirements are secure boot
>> > and the ability to lock their hardware so no one else can run things,
>> > then i'm not about to argue with them. their response is simply
>> > "fine, we'll move on to the next guy who will satisfy our
>> > requirements".
>>
>> It is your decision if you don't want to even understand your customers
>> needs.
>
> wrong, we've actually done the opposite. we know what they want to do and it
> is doable with GPLv2. it is not doable with GPLv3.