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The worry, places I've worked, is that the GPL would spread to proprietary stuff, like a kind of legal infection. They worry that if they use an AGPL javascrip
by shubb 10y ago
The worry, places I've worked, is that the GPL would spread to proprietary stuff, like a kind of legal infection.
They worry that if they use an AGPL javascript library for the video player on their front page, they'll have to opensource the whole web application (I've even sat in on debates over weather using GPL3 programs means you have to opensource any source data you use them to process and publish the result).
A lot of this is silly, but a lot of it isn't. A large company I worked for stopped using Linux after they were forced by a court to opensource a custom video processing microchip because they ran Linux on the box and drove the chip through a kernel driver.
- brazzledazzle 10y agoThey had to open source the chip design or the driver?
- shubb 10y agoThe chip design. It was a PVR box and an activist group wanted to opensource the DRM system they were using because they knew some important codes were baked into the chip so they took them to court. The court felt that the functionality was shared between the GPL kernel driver and the chip, so the chip fell under GPL.
- shubb 10y agoI haven't been able to find any mention of this online. It was around 2009, and I may have misunderstood what I was being told...