Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves

Alan Cox alan at lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk
Sun Apr 27 20:28:46 UTC 2008


>   However, that is not why a lot of open source software is written, and 
> a lot that was originally written without such restrictions has 
> subsequently had the viral GPL applied.

Actually people have spent time working out where the code came from
(usually for marketing reasons so they can claim ther company produced
more than rivals!). There is very little code that has gone from other
free licences to GPL (and where it has you can always take the original).
In each case where code has become GPL it has been *in accordance with the
original licence*.

Most GPL code has spent its entire existance being GPL code. Even more
positively the amount of GPL and other free licenced code continues to
grown rapidly and it seems exponentially (although clearly that cannot
continue forever!)

> my opinion, unlikely, claim.  They are staying legal in respect to 
> whatever pre-existing restrictions may be on included components.

There are so many people left to pursue (and as a last resort sue) who are
simply pirating GPL code that even if anyone was to go after Nvidia
(which I suspect is unlikely) they wouldn't be too high up the queue.

Alan




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