Three kinds of packages
Erik P. Olsen
epodata at gmail.com
Sun Jul 26 21:54:27 UTC 2009
On 26/07/09 23:38, Chris Adams wrote:
> Once upon a time, Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com> said:
>> I would just like to remind people that there are not two (Fedora and
>> non-free) kinds of package, but three, the totally free (Fedora), the close
>> source but legal (fglrx and similar vendor drivers), and the only legal in
>> the free world, restricted in fascist countries.
>>
>> I mention this because vendor drivers, while not open source, are free and
>> legal to use and redistribute. So let's not talk about rpmfusion and *forge
>> software as illegal, much of it is not, even in the USA.
>
> Aside from calling the US fascist (which is a little over the top,
> especially since the US isn't the only country that has allowed and/or
> enforced the stupid patents), you're wrong on another point. A number
> of the closed source kernel modules are of questionable legality (and
> not just in the US), because they may be derived works of the Linux
> kernel. A derived work of the kernel must be GPLv2, which can't be
> closed source.
>
Why aren't they then being prosecuted? Too costly?
--
Erik.
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