Bruce Perens: A Big Change for Open Source | Hacker News Reader

Bruce Perens: A Big Change for Open Source

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30 pointssoundsop7 comments

IMO this is only a big change for vultures who would ignore licenses (of which there seem to be very few). Most people were already treating open source licenses as if they were enforceable, so nothing has changed for them.

> Most people were already treating open source licenses as if they were enforceable, so nothing has changed for them.

If they're aware of it. There are lots of companies out there using GPL in their code not realising what the implications are.

There are lots of companies out there using GPL in their code not realising what the implications are.

True, although this case won't change their behavior either.

"I've found three ways to combine any proprietary work with GPL and other Free Software, without a need to give away any source code, even when the Free part is under the new and most rigorous GPL3 license."

What on Earth is he talking about? I this was true, wouldn't it be completely subverting all the copyleft licenses? This is dropped completely as a side-thought, but isn't it rather disquieting and completely against everything else he stands for in this article? Have I misunderstood something?

I don't know what these "three ways" are, but the GPL in general will not cross a process boundary. As long as you talk to it cross-process, you're safe from the point of view of combining code. You're even "safer" if you're talking across servers. (Scare quoted because you're basically 100% safe either way.) Other clauses may need to be respected as well but they tend not to be onerous.

Obviously, with sufficient effort, you can do anything across a process boundary, it's just inconvenient, and you have to at least share all the changes you made on the GPL side.

I think he was talking about http://technocrat.net/d/2008/6/11/43198 where the three ways are:

Separate CPU, Kernel under a kernel, and User Mode

More applicable to appliances and embedded software, than application software in general.

Hmm, very interesting. It sounds like a miniature remake of the SCO vs. Linux case.

The last bit, that the defendant needs to spend millions to refute an attack, is actually scary. Hadn't he had free layers, he'd be in deep trouble by now even after winning the case. All that, by giving away your work under a free license!

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