[nzlug] Thought this might be of interest:

[Glenn Enright]

>
> Two sides of the same coin - they've both got very good points.
>

Indeed FSF seem to argue the main point of difference is that
situations such as Tivoisation should not happen, and that in order to
gain the influence they need for v3, want the linux kernel to come
under the v3 umbrella. Linus on the other hand disagrees somewhat
violently with this ethic and protests that software and hardware
should not necessarily be tied by the same licencing agreement, indeed
this severely restricts some of the key advantages companies see in
contributing to the linux kernel.

To me, the issue of hardware and IP is increasingly important when we
see so many companies starting to litigate just to stay afloat. The
patent laws were never designed to be a complete protection for even
the smallest ideas. By using open standards some companies are finding
their licensing burden to be significantly reduced. But in order for
such open standards to exist and continue to exist, we need a new
approach to sharing ideas. I suggest that social
bookmarking/publication sites[1] might be the beginning of a
sharing/knowledge environment that encourages such an approach.

What this might mean for the v3 licence is that if companies open
their hardware technology to competitors, then the remaining place
they can make money is in service offerings, by enforcing some kind of
lock in (private keys etc) for the sake of consistency between their
hardware and the software that runs on it.

So I generally think that while the software should be modifiable and
'free' to everyone, preventing the possibility of commercial gain is a
bad idea. With retail margins for common devices so small, my feeling
is that the services are where most companies are making their crust
now. If the kernel adopted v3 then where would that leave businesses
wanting to use linux?

[1] http://www.bibsonomy.org is one experimental example I've come across.