Re: [tlug] JFS file system license

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Curt Sampson writes:
 > On 2008-10-30 12:09 +0900 (Thu), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
 > 
 > > I don't think it will ever be solved.  The FSF's interpretation will
 > > rule, because they are willing to go to court and nobody else is.
 > > It's just too easy to code around the problem; why make some lawyers
 > > rich?
 > 
 > On any individual basis, yes. The BSDs spend a few tens of thousands
 > of dollars worth of programmer time to write editline;

Which seems moderately stupid since ZLE is permissively licensed, and
the Zsh guys do it for fun as far as I know.

 > But by the time it all adds up, we collectively could easily have come
 > up with a million or two to put an end to this drag on the growth of the
 > industry.

I don't know if that's enough. :-)

Anyway, it's not that easy.  Remember, even though RMS can't decide
for the courts what copyright law means, there's always contract law.
While my opinion (and that of some authorities) is that copyright law
provides no foundation for *strong* copyleft, I don't know anyone who
disagrees that strong copyleft could be implemented via contract law.

This would, of course, be a major change of strategy for the FSF, but
if forced into it, I bet RMS would go that way, despite the costs of
extracting agreement to the license.  Now, that would be a drag on the
growth of the industry, indeed!