[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Message-ID: <20070614070006.GA7393@brong.net>
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:00:06 +1000
From: Bron Gondwana <brong@...tmail.fm>
To: Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@...hat.com>
Cc: Bron Gondwana <brong@...tmail.fm>,
Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
Chris Adams <cmadams@...aay.net>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3
On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 01:58:26AM -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On Jun 14, 2007, Bron Gondwana <brong@...tmail.fm> wrote:
>
> > Tivo gets sick of the endless flamewars on lkml, signs a copy
> > of QNX, pushes it out to the hardware. No more Linux on Tivo.
>
> What do we lose?
>
> Do we actually get any benefit whatsoever from TiVO's choice of Linux
> as the kernel for its device?
Sure, if they make any changes or fixes to Linux. Other than that,
only the same benefit that Microsoft get from Windows piracy - TiVo
employees become familiar with Linux and are more likely to use it
and maybe contribute more in another job later.
What we don't get is TiVo having a better kernel than everyone else
because they've put some work into extending it without giving that
work back.
I see stuff in arch/powerpc/kernel/ which is Copyright "TiVo, Inc"
and more recent stuff in usb/net/asix.c and usb/net/mcs7830.c which
is more than I've ever contributed to the kernel, despite making
extensive use and even selling services where I ran servers with
Linux on them but didn't allow my customers to change the kernel
on the servers if there was some feature they wanted to play with.
> Do TiVO customers lose anything from the change from one non-Free
> software to another? (the Linux binary, as shipped in the TiVO, has
> become non-Free)
Not particularly, no. Other than maybe some nice features that TiVo
gains from being able to use Linux.
Bron.
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
Powered by blists - more mailing lists