On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Joerg Schilling wrote:

> The fact that some people without legal knowledge claim a general unspecific
> incompatibility should not be taken for serious.

What I know is that I must defer all the legal aspects to Sun's legal 
team, and have discussed several of these issues with them. While they 
agree that some things are not cast in stone (i.e., have not been taken to 
a court of law), they have a specific side they err on, and this is one of 
those issues that seems to be accepted by them.

I do not get a choice in the matter, where you as an outsider of Sun can 
view it differently.

I've personally never liked the fiasco that was created with the Linux 
2.4.13 kernel, where the GPL exportt is required and if not used your code 
is considered to be tainting the kernel.

I just do not feel the whole kernel linking has much value when placed in 
open source software, either it's free or it's not.

I 'spose this is my problem with the GPL, in that I do feel it places 
restrictions on the code, and in various ways places restrictions on it's 
very freedom.

With that said, I don't have a choice with OpenSolaris, it's the Sun 
lawyers that will ultimately decide, and defend what they have created.

> With the same way of thinking, a lock and a key may be called incompatible
> because you cannot put the lock _into_ the key. The same key could be put
> into the same lock.....without a poroblem.

I don't see it as being so simple, I see a key that will fit but will 
break off in the lock, or a key that will break the lock after it is in 
the lock. It's not that the lock and key are incompatible, it's that they 
do not work together due to licensing and/or interpetation.

I'm certainly in envy of you non-lawyers that understand this better than 
lawyers, but I can't and will not claim to be in that group.

> Do not listen to the people who like to tell you that there are problems
> because you cannot put the lock into the key.....understand that the GPL
> is a heavily assymetric license.

What do you suggest when I need to deal with Sun legal? Sounds like you're 
saying I should not listen to them. That doesn't seem like a very good 
option for me since I need to work with them.

--

Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group
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