On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 6:13 AM, Mark Rages wrote: > On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 3:58 PM, William Chops Westfield wrote: >> >> On May 10, 2008, at 11:40 AM, Mark Rages wrote: >>> Can you explain how the GPL does not allow you to change >>> the software to suit your needs? >> >> "My needs include being able to keep my modifications to the open >> source material proprietary when I distribute the software." "I need >> to keep distribution difficulties in check, and cannot afford to >> distribute my embedded product in a form where it can be re-built >> with modified versions of the open-source libraries that it uses." >> >> GPL advocates may claim that these are not VALID needs, or argue >> about the difficulty of meeting them within GPL, but it tends to get >> my hackles up whenever someone else is ready to tell me what *I* need. >> > > The GPL is concerned with the software users' rights, not progammers. > Ok, let's talk about the end user. On the PC software side, I think GPL is quite good. The end users are in general happy. The programmers are in general happy. GPL V3 changed a bit so that some end user are happier and some are less happy (eg: TiVo). My main problem with GPL/LGPL comes when I consider the use of embedded software in a MCU. This has been discussed before and even BAJ think this GPL/LGPL do not suit that well. In that end, you can not incorporate GPLed software easily into your project without exposing your own codes unless you only use your device in-house. So you, as an end user, can not change the GPLed software to suit your needs in a way. So in the end you do not use it even though technically it may be quite suitable. So in the end, you do not really see GPLed firmware pieces in small MCUs like PIC. You do see that embedded Linux being used by bigger MCUs where it is easier to seperate the kernel space and user space. Even there, the end user need to be very careful about seperating the kernel and the user codes. By the way, to me GPL is a very good ballancing protecting the rights of the developer and the end user. I think it is not true that it only concerns the end user. For example, Linux kernel developers have a weapon to wipe out the possibility of in-kernel proprietory driver by export EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL symbol. Xiaofan -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist