'GPL encumbrance problems'

[Tim]

Erwin Rol:
>> What I don't really understand is how you go *poof* out of the market
>> when you sell gadgets that need a open source driver ? People still
>> would have to by the gadget, wouldn't they ? 

Andy Green:
> The worry is that when much of what makes the gadget innovative is tied
> up in the code that must be opened, people will indeed still buy the
> gadget, but perhaps not from the original author of the opened code...
> lots of people with financial interests in such projects become highly
> agitated and concerned when told they must give the sources with the
> product, although that seems to be gradually going away as we see more
> and more embedded GPL stuff and so far little or no destruction from it.

Nothing new with this.  How many different brands of radio can you buy
in a shop?  Many are copies of others, in concept at least.  Whatever
you can make, so can someone else; you've just got to make a better
product, all round.  Or is your television the same brand as the first
one ever designed, your radio, your phone, and so on...

Most electronic parts are common, so it's easy enough to open up a
gadget and duplicate it.  Whether it's worth the effort to directly copy
someone else's engineering is another matter.

Occasionally I see manufacturers gouging out identifying marks on
components.  I hate this, it makes service next to impossible.  They
want you to buy $1 components from them with a $50 price, and they only
keep them available for a couple of years.

If I buy something from someone, I buy what they've built, the product.
That's what they sell us, something prebuilt.  It's a bit rich to say
they us consumers have no right to know how it works.  If I decide to
crack it open and modify it, I will.  If I decide to crack it open and
do something similar in something I'm going to use around home or work,
I will.  I'm sure not going to go around selling something copied that
way, though.

When you make everything closed (electronics, software, etc.), you kill
off the next generation of experimenters who pull things apart to find
out how they work, and build better versions.  Few kids getting into
computers these days actually have an interest in "computing," they just
want a magic trick box.  Likewise with electronics, they don't build a
radio or stereo amplifier, they just hunt around for prebuilt modules.

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