Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> ____/ chrisv on Wednesday 23 January 2008 14:59 : \____
>
>> Thufir wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:56:26 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>>
>>>> It looks as though WP will
>>>> go v3 some time in the future, but I had to argue with Tivo apologists,
>>>> who in turn seemed like they simply didn't like the GNU philosophy _in
>>>> general_, just as Stallman used to warn.
>>>
>>>
>>>To me, what Tivo did is an ok compromise. Their product, as envisioned,
>>>cannot be entirely FOSS. they need some sort of business model.
>>>
>>>They're still distributing Linux.
>>>
>>>Hypothetical: I doubt that even the GPLv3 would really stop the
>>>*problem*, tivoization, which it's meant to fix. Why couldn't Tivo
>>>simply come up with a close source app to sit on top of Linux? Would
>>>that not work?
>>
>> I also see nothing wrong with the Tivo situation.
>
> I've never realised why they didn't negotiate this before finalising. I'm just
> surprised people focus on just this one aspect (among others) of the new
> licence. I haven't much against Tivo either, but if it's going to become very
> widespread, it would be nice to stop is early on (before it becomes the norm,
> which is unlikely anyway).
>
Tivo have, as far as I can see, quite deliberately used GPLed code in
such a way that the "freedoms" of the GPL cannot be met. They didn't
need to do it this way, rather, they chose too. Furthermore, they've
had ample time to change their approach, and have specifically chosen
not to change it.
They've exploited an unintentional loophole, and merged that
exploitation into their business model, but worse, when it was pointed
out to them, they did *nothing* about it.
It's not just them, of course, there are loads of companies doing this.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
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