Re: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers

From: Michael K. Edwards
Date: Mon Feb 19 2007 - 19:29:17 EST


On 2/19/07, Trent Waddington <trent.waddington@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hang on, you're actually debating that you have to abide by conditions
of a license before you can copy a copyright work?

Please, tell us the names of these appellate court decisions so that
we can read them and weep.

Can we put the gamesmanship on "low" here for a moment? Ask yourself
which is more likely: am I a crank who spends years researching the
legal background of the GPL solely for the purpose of ranting
incoherently on debian-legal and LKML, or am I a mid-career embedded
software developer with an obsessive streak who has come to a
realization how dangerous this whole EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL business is to
his niche in the industry? Do I have an irrational hatred for people
named Eben, or am I sick to the heart of seeing decent young kids'
beliefs about the law perverted by a racketeer in attorney's clothing
with (at an informed guess) somewhere between $300K and $2M a year in
easy money from his web of "non-profit" shell companies? I may be
_wrong_ -- but I'm not _witless_.

Now, if you want to play games, get yourself a copy of this
new-fangled invention called a "web browser", and Google for each set
of capitalized words with a "v." in between that has appeared in my
posts to LKML in the last few days. For extra credit, follow links to
older posts, cleverly signposted with "http://";. Repeat ad nauseam.
When you have an argument to offer that isn't already a blenderized
equine, preferably associated with a citation to one of those shiny
URL thingies with an "edu" or a "findlaw" in it, or even one of those
phrases with the magic "v.", I'm all ears. Good morning -- and if I
don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.

- Michael
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