Re: [oc] RE: [pci] PCI core ( LICENSING )

[Niclas Hedhman <niclas@hedhman.org>]

On Saturday 05 April 2003 02:54, Cyrano wrote:
<snip>
> GPL avoid all of this flow. It force compagnies to play the fair game.
> Free software had soon win. "Users" of IP cores are designers them-self.
> The puclic is much narrower but the benefit are the same.
> You can't count on enginer feed-back. There work is owned by there
> compagny and they can't disclosed code without risk. GPL is very clear
> on those point (the copyright holder is always the compagny, so
> designer can't make it public without company consent, the disclosure
> is mandatory to user only).

This is one of the best "promotional speeches" of GPL I have ever heard. 
Thanks!

BUT, (L)GPL is not adjusted to a reality outside C programs. Even Java 
applications are in limbo when utilizing GPL code, where is the border 
between "use" and "derive".

Finally,
so what if Microsoft uses TCP/IP from open source. I think that is great. 
Maybe they even could use Apache as web server and Linux under the hood of 
Windows. Should they be allowed to sell this for money? Absolutely! If they 
can't, I can't, you can't, and we are all out of revenue, and have to start 
selling hamburgers.
One of the important messages from OSS is about "Fostering Communities and its 
members", and one day (maybe) the number of OSS enthusiasts working inside 
Microsoft will make an influence, and I think we will see MS participate in 
OSS activities. (First they have to verticalize their product lines, since 
that's where you will make the money in the future.) Other large software 
companies have slowly seen the light, and are contributing at many fronts.

Niclas

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