[U-Boot] U-book and GPLv3? (fwd)

[Scott Wood]

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 08:30:29AM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
> 
>     > You have a strange definition of freedom - for you it is limited to the
>     > provider of the devices not to the users of the devices.  I guess this
>     > is what this all boils down to.
> 
>     No, it is "let the device providers and the users who have *chosen* to 
>     use those devices sort it out themselves, *I'm* not restricting anyone".
> 
> More precisely stated, it's "I'm not restricting anyone, and if
> someone else is, I don't care."  The difference here is between
> defending freedom and standing aside while it gets lost.

Not "I don't care", but "I have different ideas of what constitutes
unreasonable restriction", or possibly "I don't want to use this
particular means to address it because it has other harmful effects".

> Leaving the powerful few and the weak divided many to "sort it out" is
> predictably likely to lead to bad results.  (That is why consumer
> protection law exists -- because a market without regulation is
> dangerous.  This is also why financial industry regulation exists, and
> if the powerful had not sabotaged it, we wouldn't have the current
> economic downturn.)

Sure.  That doesn't mean that every specific regulation is automatically
good.

-Scott