Thomas Hertweck schrieb:
> [some good points]
> 
> In order to learn more about it, I have recently asked to provide the
> references for some judgements that were made at German courts and that
> were mentioned in an email here. But, as expected, when you ask for
> details and when you try to figure out whether these judgements really
> concern the questions that have been discussed on this list, then
> usually you get no answer. Don't take everything for granted, we should
> sometimes also dare to ask the detailed and unpopular questions -
> although some people don't like it.

thats not true. as I was the one that wrote about that I've also
ansered. as I wrote already, there was an article in one of the papers
"c't" from heise. I read about it in the year 2004 and as I don't have
an archive about the old ones, I can't tell you exactly the number of
the paper.

but I have also written about an act between some kernel maintainer
against a hardware vendor ( or to be more clear: a router vendor ) that
has used code from iptable in his software. in that case the german
court agreed with the maintainers, and give a clear statemend about the
GPL and the german law.
if you didn't read that, let me know, I can post the links again.

I know that this ( using GPL-licenced code in closed source progarms)
isn't the same then linking a ( closed sourced ) driver against a
(GLP-licenced) kernel module it shows 2 importend views:

- the GPL is accepted at german courts so it is conform to german law
- there are ways for the maintainers to get there rights at a (german) court

I agree total with you that this all is a "gray zone" as you wrote. and
I also agree with a lot of people on this list that there must be a
solution for a) the users to don't get in conflict with the licence and
make it easy for them to use a driver b) for the maintainer of distros
to don't get also in conflict with a licence and to include as mutch
drivers at needfull and c) also the kernel maintainer that there get the
rights they have.

> I think we all agree that open-source drivers are to be preferred and
> might be the best solution. However, from my point of view the cheap
> propaganda that some people make against closed-source drivers does not
> help to solve the problem at all!

thats your point of view. I have another one. and others maybe have
there owen. to name that views "cheap propaganda" is not realy nice, and
with that your owen posts ends to the same: not nice "cheap propaganda"
against people that believe more in open sourced drivers and it doesn't
solve the problem at all too.

> Cheers,
> Th.

best regards,
JBScout aka Thomy
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