Re: How long is linux going to be free ?
On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 08:06:08AM -0800, adit y wrote:
> I am not talking about debian in particular but linux in general
>
> 1. How long is it going to be free ?
Forever.
> 2. Is there any possibility of this becoming a copyrighted software in
> future ? ( i mean some company taking over and saying that only i am
> the owner and only i can make modifications)
No. Some company might try to do that with BSD-or-similarly-licensed
bits, but we could always fork an older version.
The only possibility of problems, as far as I can see, would be patent
claims. I don't think that's realistically going to cause a problem for
the whole system, though; with companies like IBM who have more
intellectual property than many whole countries interested in developing
GNU/Linux, we should be OK.
> So are there any tabs here in linux where it can not become not free
> in future. so any gpl derived software needs to be gpled but what
> about the other way, can you start including non gpled software
> ,closed sourced modules in gpled software.
No, you can't link non-GPL code with GPL code. That counts as a derived
work. dlopen()able modules are debatable, but the FSF's line is that the
combination of program and modules counts as a single program.
Mere aggregation, e.g. the inclusion of two programs on the same CD,
doesn't require compatible licensing.
> if that is possible then with each new release can included a included
> a lot of non gpled software being used from gpled, eventually by the
> time you get into version 50.0 it might become 2% free and 98% not
> free. looks like some flavors of linux are going that way.
They're doing that with extra programs, not modules for existing
programs, as far as I know. However, you're guaranteed that the 'main'
distribution of Debian will always consist only of free software, and,
with the odd nitpick over things like firmware for odd devices, I think
it's vanishingly unlikely that the Linux kernel itself will ever be
anything other than free.
http://www.debian.org/social_contract
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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