Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion. | From | Dana Lacoste <> | Date | 29 May 2002 09:54:06 -0400 |
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On Tue, 2002-05-28 at 21:34, Mark Mielke wrote: > It is really simple. Either A) Victor has a patent, and code in RTAI > may need to be licensed, or B) Victor has a patent, and code in RTAI > does not need to be licensed.
I think this is the main, critical, horrendous point.
RTAI is free, open source software. whether it is covered by the licence or not, it's allowed by the free clauses in rtlinux.
The problem here (and i can see why Karim is upset) is that people who use RTAI to make commercial, closed source software may ALSO be required to licence RTLinux even though they're using RTAI, not RTLinux.
This would be retarded. I mean, seriously, making the linux kernel require anybody who's doing any commercial real-time stuff pay Victor because it's in the kernel source and it's patented is just plain dumb. Linus doesn't want to force anyone to use bitkeeper, why should he force anyone to pay Victor as well?
Of course I must point out that it's easy for me to speak up : although I do almost entirely embedded work I have absolutely no use for RT software here, so I'm not affected at all. I just see it as a slippery slope towards BSD :)
Dana Lacoste Ottawa, Canada
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