Peter Gordon <peter@thecodergeek.com> wrote:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> Alan M. Evans wrote: > On Wed, 2006-06-14 at 10:44, Sean wrote: >> Hah! What a confused piece of logic that is. The thing that >> is really restricting you is the patented priprietary library! > > No. Nothing in most proprietary licenses restrict them being linked into > programs containing parts with other licenses. The thing that restricts > this is the GPL. Your statement is patently false. Incorrect. If you wish to do so, you may freely link a GPL'd work to a proprietary one. You would not be allowed to redistribute that linked work though. (You would still be permitted to redistribute the GPL-only component if it could be reasonably and logically distinct from the proprietary work.) Remember: The GPL is a copyright license. It only restricts the manners in which users may modify and/or redistribute a given work. It does *not* restrict usage. (And, in fact, if it did it would be non-Free.) > Please don't misunderstand. I don't have any real problem with the GPL. > It's just a license. That's ok. I do, however, see quite a few GPL > evangelists running about with a see-no-evil approach to their preferred > license. Stop for a moment and realize that, while the GPL may have some > real advantages, it also has some disadvantages. Pointing out those > disadvantages is not heresy. Agreed. -- Peter Gordon (codergeek42) This message was sent through a webmail interface, and thus not signed. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list </blockquote> And this may be the very reason why we can not get the drivers for our hardware distributed with Suse anymore. If there is no legal way around this, Suse Desktop will be a thing of the past for the general desktop user (e.g. home user who is not technical). Suse and other Linux vendors will not have a snow balls chance in you know where in competing against MS Windows with out drivers. This would include USB devices as well.