[svlug] Fedora or Ubuntu for novis

[Don Marti]

begin Tim Bird quotation of Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 09:41:31AM -0700:
> Don Marti wrote:
> > The main problem with getting companies to make
> > code Free is _not_ managers acting in the interests
> > of their shareholders or in their own interest.
> > The main problem is just inertia.  If the policy
> > at a company has been "never release source code"
> > you have to do something to make it happen the first
> > time, and you can't justify putting in the time to do
> > it unless you can say that you have to.
> > 
> > If you're Joe Product Manager and you want to put
> > source code for your device on the net, or on the
> > bundled CD, you can easily explain it as "we're
> > complying with our obligation under the license."
> > If you don't have the GPL to point to, _you_ have
> > to come up with the reason why you're sharing code,
> > and it had better not be "community mumble mumble
> > hippy dippy 2.0 mumble mumble."
> 
> That's exactly right.  I love this last part you wrote.
> 
> Most of the reasons that community guys try to give
> to product guys for mainlining stuff (as opposed
> to just publishing as required by license) don't
> really have a compelling ring to them, to the product
> guys anyway, and amount to so much mumbling like you
> say.
> 
> May I quote you on this?

Permission granted to quote me with attribution.
(Please link my name to http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
if the medium permits.)

The old "if you mainline it, upstream is less likely
to break your stuff with a future version" argument
seems to work well for server-side Linux, but if it's
an embedded product based on 2.6.26 you aren't going
to be expecting users to upgrade it to a new release
based on .29 some day.

-- 
Don Marti                                               +1 510-814-0932
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
dmarti at zgp.org         Linux device driver unconference: http://freedomhec.org/