Re: I2O, free software

joost witteveen (joost@rulcmc.leidenuniv.nl)
Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:09:58 +0200 (CEST)


> > I am not quite sure how the legalities work in this case, but I would like
> > to hear someone's informed opinion as to what are the potential real world
> > problems Linux/GNU/free software people could face because of I2O.
>
> It goes like this
> Hello we'd like to write I2O support for Linux
> $5000/yr please
> [assuming we find it]
> Binary only, can't reveal its workings to end users, non members,
> and if you leave you must stop shipping the I2O support

I just looked at the I2O pages, but I cannot find how they actually
define a "member". So what if we set up an organisation that simply
includes the whole world (or everybody who wants to join us), and
let that organisation be a member? Then not being able to
disclose the source-code to non-members isn't gonna be too much
of a problem.

But I'm sure somewhere in the fine print they define what the structure
or whatever of each individual memeber is, and anyway, MS apparently
can expell any member they want. Would be interesting though, MS
publicly expelling the free software world from I2O.

-- 
joost witteveen, joostje@debian.org
#!/usr/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)
#what's this? see http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/