[maemo-developers] Open Source Software New Global Alliance - proposal

[From: Igor Stoppa]

On Thu, 2008-05-08 at 10:07 +0000, ext Darius Jack wrote:
> 
> Developers of GNU open source software have been working hard for
> years, working for the community and today, their job and work is made
> commercial software product by others
> and offered for more than 1 US$ on a market.
> 
> So there is a need a new global alliance to solve the problem of
> financing of
> open source software developers as money for sold Linux based open
> source software products in hardware embedded devices (TomTom and
> others) goes in millions per day.
> 
> Darius
> f.IT forensic expert

There are far different issues with companies using FOSS than suing them
because their sw works only on their hw.

>From your description it looks like you don't even have well clear the
difference between source and binary.

Why would i bother with the binary if i can recompile/modify the source
code?

Want to help? There are companies doing modifications of GPL code and
not providing the cource. That's a violation.

You are focused on the plain monetary exchange but fail to notice that
the real price companies have to pay for using FOSS is that they have to
give back whatever innovation has been created on top of free code.

In _source_ format, please.

Also if you are involved in legal stuff, you should know that for
certain regulations the manufacturer of a device can be considered
responsible of damage done by 3rd party sw, unless it has taken care to
make reasonably hard for the user to install any non authorized sw. This
covers crypto signed binaries and hw locks.

-- 
Cheers, Igor

---

Igor Stoppa
NGSW - Nokia Devices R&D - Helsinki