lesser GPL restrictions

[David Johnson]

On Wednesday 07 November 2001 10:29 pm, Michael Beck wrote:

> > in either case, open-source is caused no harm.
>
> So if Microsoft takes some cool parts of Linux and incorporates it in
> Windows (assuming for a second that it's legally possible), you would be OK
> with it?

First of all, it IS legal for Microsoft to do that. They just have to follow 
the license if they do :-) But if they didn't follow the license, I would NOT 
be okay with it.

But other than damaged sensibilities, it wouldn't harm anything. No money has 
been lost. No source code has been damaged. No *additional* restrictions have 
been imposed. No objective damage has occurred. The only offense has been 
subjective hurt to people's feelings.

Those feelings are important so they need to be taken into account. But 
beyond that nothing objective is harmed by violating copyright. Or at least 
that's what the napsteroids tell me.

-- 
David Johnson
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