Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:24:16 -0400 | From | "Dave Neuer" <> | Subject | Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3 |
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On 6/14/07, David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> wrote: > > And what about people who can't modify the Linux kernel? They don't know C. > They don't know how to use a shell. They're not familiar with UNIX operating > systems at all. Maybe they aren't smart enough to modify kernel code.
I learned C in part by modifying the Linux kernel and running the modified kernel on hardware I own, and enabling precisely that kind of tinkering is what the "spirit" of the GPL is about, as is quite plain (to me) from the preamble.
> > The GPL is about having the legal right to modify the software and being > able to put other people's distributed improvements back into the original > code base.
I agree that is what the letter of the GPLv<3 is about.
> It does not guarantee that you will actually be able to modify > the software and get it to work on some particular hardware.
Please don't conflate my endorsement of the "spirit" of the GPL with Alexandre's assertion that the GPLv2 forbids TiVOisation. I don't agree with him. My point is that people arguing that the spirit of the GPL doesn't revolve around the freedom of the end user to modify the software *and* run modified copies seem to be missing the point. Linus gets that, as he said in a previous message, he just doesn't personally care about freedom defined that way.
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