Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 18th Jul 2007 22:02 UTC
"Forget software politics for a minute - what does the new Samba licensing mean for the version you're actually running, and for the distribution that packages it for you? Samba maintainer Jeremy Allison explains."
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Member since:
2006-04-04
Perhaps rather than 'inclusiveness' as a goal, the stress should be on a level playing field.
Until the patent agreements started springing up, everyone who contributed to GPL projects did so on the same terms as everyone else. Joe the programmer working in his spare time was on the same footing as a development team from IBM. Each could contribute and know that their contributions could not be taken away from them or improved upon without them receiving the benefits of those improvements.
The patent deals tilted this landscape. Now one entity could contribute to a GPL project and not be in the same ship as other contributors. Entities like Novell can now use the works of others with more safety than the original author! Not exactly something that would encourage those others with less protection from the MSs of the world to want to continue to contribute when their contributions (and any improvements on their contributions) are more advantageous to their competitors than they are to themselves.
One of the aims of GPL3 is to re-level the playing field. Any contributor now is protected as much as any other, so anyone is safe to contribute without losing the potential benefits of their contribution or having their contributions become more valuable to a competitor than themselves