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To: Bill Fischofer who wrote (9713)5/25/2001 2:24:04 PM
From: Allen Benn  Read Replies (2) of 10309
 
We all agree that running applications on top of Linux need not expose IP to GPL. You suggest that fact can defeat the GPL even for situations involving a kernel change, by using hooks.

Are you certain that a construction whose only purpose is to defeat the appearance of what is in reality an entanglement of IP with Linux will be interpreted as you suggest in a court of law?

Would you bet your company’s IP that your perfectly sensible view of an API addition to form a needed, but non-connected, hook to your IP will hold sway in a court of law?

My guess is most technical people today would agree with your solution, as I think I do. I suspect most companies agree by default, because they probably haven’t really thought it through. After all, what are the chances that a challenge would be mounted anyway?

This is where it gets interesting. Microsoft has blasted a cannon ball across the bow of any company allowing their IP to touch Linux. Microsoft’s should now attack aggressively on the legal front, not so much to test these issues, but to send the message to companies not to screw around with Linux. Whether your disconnect trick has legal merit or not, the last thing most companies would want to do is to have to defend the trick against an army of Microsoft lawyers fresh from doing battle with the United States government on whether a browser is integral to Windows. The exception, of course, is IBM, but I doubt Microsoft would pit its army of lawyers against IBM’s formidable army of its own. Microsoft would choose an easier target to make its point.

Intellectual Property law is its own deserved specialty that need not conform to what might seem reasonable to non-specialists.

Allen
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