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more on 'A lawyer who is also idealist - how refreshing'
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 06:16:42 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Robbert Haarman <interesting-people () inglorion net> Date: March 30, 2006 4:47:41 PM EST To: David Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: Re: [IP] 'A lawyer who is also idealist - how refreshing'
Manufacturers of embedded systems have a strong incentive to play along. As Moglen points out: "What they want is a very robust, highly debugged, completely stable, omni-competent, zero dollars per unit software platform for agile manufacture of devices in the future." Only one meets all those requirements: GNU/Linux.
I don't think that's true. The BSDs are similar to GNU/Linux in features, but come with a much more liberal license. If manufacturers, for whatever reason, take issue with the terms of the new GPL, they might well switch. They could still leverage a large part of the expertise they have with GNU/Linux, and they would still have a "robust, highly debugged, completely stable, omni-competent, zero dollars per unit software platform for agile manufacture of devices." The main difference would be that the BSD license allows them to do pretty much anything they please in whatever way they please, including the inclusion of closed-source DRM software that may not be circumvented by users. Regards, Bob ---An astronaut in space in 1970 was asked by a reporter, "How do you feel?"
"How would you feel," the astronout replied, "if you were stuck here, on top of 20,000 parts each one supplied by the lowest engineering bidder?" ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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