Microsofts new way of bashing Linux

[Derek Broughton]

Michael T. Richter wrote:

> On Fri, 2006-16-06 at 15:24 -0300, Derek Broughton wrote:
> 
>> > Ah.  So... it protects my intellectual property by kindly permitting me
>> > to keep my name attached to it.  I can't realistically do anything else
>> > to profit from it like sell it, but I can have my name attached to it.
> 
>> Stop trolling.  You know better.  Nobody forces you to release your
>> software under the GPL.
> 
> 
> Speaking of trolling, perhaps you'd like to do a little less of it
> yourself?  At no point have I even hinted that anybody is being forced
> to release their software under the GPL.

And I didn't say you had.  You have, however, said that it prevents you
retaining IP, which is untrue and a clear troll.
> 
> So some people willingly give up their intellectual property because it
> isn't that valuable to them -- other aspects of their business are more
> valuable to them.  So they put it under the GPL which pretty much
> eliminates any personal/corporate IP.  Thanks for clearing that up.

It does not, in any way, limit my IP.  If I released software to the public
domain, it would stop being mine - _then_ I'd have no IP.
> 
> This doesn't in any way contradict my statement that the GPL in no way
> protects IP but rather eliminates it as a concept except in terms of
> community property.

Does too.  
> 
>> GPL is, for instance, the ideal
>> license for things like drivers - it allows vendors to maintain ownership
>> without limiting the usefulness of the hardware.  I have never understood
>> hardware vendors who close-source the driver software.
> 
> 
> I've addressed this before in this very forum.  At least three times.
> It always gets ignored because it is an "inconvenient truth".

No, it gets ignored because it's an untruth.

> The fact is that many hardware manufacturers have trade secrets.  I know
> the CT company I worked for had (and still has!) many trade secrets
> around their software.  Exposing the driver source code can give a
> competitor--one smart enough to keep their trade secrets to

Then keep the trade secrets in the _firmware_.  There's only benefit to be
gained by the hardware manufacturers in releasing the software to allow
others to improve on it - as is clear from the way Linksys sold it's
Linux-based WRT54G routers.  When they went to a closed version with
version 5, it flopped so badly they immediately released WRT54GL (Linux)
routers.

> So by making my drivers 
> open source, I basically give away my competitive advantage and let my
> competitors reap the benefits of my hard-spent money on R&D.

Only if you think of the software as the generator of your profit, when you
should be concentrating on your hardware.

-- 
derek