> Where we agree / First, I want to get out of the way some things that I completely or mostly agree with. Josef's first key item is in regards to the GPL: The

> Where we agree / First, I want to get out of the way some things that I completely or mostly agree with. Josef's first key item is in regards to the GPL: The standard GNU GPL license under which our printers and software are available is very vague, written in a complicated way, and open to various interpretations. It was developed by academics for academic purposes. This is just pure wrong. Now, I'm willing to grant that the GPL might not be suited to hardware--hardware is generally patented, not copyrighted--if given a substantive analysis, but I note that commercial firmware-in-hardware is covered by the same copyright law and licenses that GPL is meant to deal with, so right at the outset this critique seems like gibberish, and if pursued looks set to produce a new poorly thought out problematic license. > music equipment, where one asshole with a big factory is cloning and undercutting every popular product he can, including those by small open hardware designers. Behringer makes high quality, good sounding, inexpensive music gear that makes great sound available to young and barely-professional musicians. Most musicians are classic "starving artists", and Behringer is selling them more affordable stuff than anybody else. Seems a strange market to attack. (Behringer mostly clones and modernizes "classic" synths from (say) the 70's and 80's, most of whose original designers are dead, and who made good money off them back in the day before selling out to soulless corporations, and models that aren't even available any more, hardly the poster children for being ripped off.