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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!grumpy.fl.net.au!news.webspan.net!newsfeeds.sol.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!uunet!in2.uu.net!143.183.141.49!scnews.sc.intel.com!itnews.sc.intel.com!news.fm.intel.com!ornews.intel.com!news.jf.intel.com!haertel From: haertel@ichips.intel.com (Mike Haertel) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: Linux vs whatever Date: 30 Jan 1997 06:16:45 GMT Organization: Intel Corporation Lines: 36 Message-ID: <5cpece$evs@news.jf.intel.com> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <32f342b7.11963784@uns.bris.ac.uk> <5cnqsl$78o@cynic.portal.ca> <32EFDF58.41C67EA6@freebsd.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: pdxcs078.intel.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:155132 comp.os.linux.networking:66648 comp.os.linux.setup:94608 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:5802 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2130 comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy:51372 comp.os.os2.advocacy:264426 In article <32EFDF58.41C67EA6@freebsd.org>, John S. Dyson <dyson@freebsd.org> wrote: >But how does one do that? >If the original owner has seen the mods, the possibility >taint (seeing the GPLed mods) rears it's ugly head. I think you're being overly paranoid. If you read a GPL'd program, and then write (from scratch) a new program that does the same thing, anybody who claims your new implementation is "tainted" with the GPL would be laughed out of court unless you do something blatant like transcribing the old code with new variable names. Even if you use the same algorithms. It wouldn't be like you were trying to reverse engineer someone's unpublished proprietary secrets in the face of a signed license agreement. For a concrete example of this, compare FreeBSD's malloc with GNU malloc. It's an obvious take-off (with a few changes). It's also obviously a completely from-scratch piece of code. People do it all the time. Nobody worries about it. The only thing I worry about with the GNU license is people in the free software community wasting hundreds of hours reinventing the wheel due to misplaced paranoia. If a GPL'd program does the job, use it. If the copyright holder tries to make trouble for you later, replace it. The copyright holder of a GPL'd program certainly won't be able to claim any damages if you obey the GPL in good faith. So really, the worst that can happen is you'll have to replace some GPL'd component at a later date. Since that is always possible, why make extra work for yourself by reinventing the wheel now if you don't have to? -- Mike Haertel <haertel@ichips.intel.com> Not speaking for Intel.