Re: Tom Tom and Microsofts Linux patent lock-down ..

[Hyman Rosen]

amicus_curious wrote:
> Have you seen that done?  It must be extremely rare, if it happens at all. 
Who would ever want to do such a thing?

People who are interested in how their router works, and who
may want to customize how it works, and who may want to share
such customizations with others. There is ample precedent of
people "modding" all sorts of devices. The beauty of the GPL
is that it allows this to be done by anyone who wants to. If
no one wants to, that is fine, but the distributors of the
software must offer their users the freedom to do this.

> The practical matter is that there are so very few such users and those users are probably mentally deranged anyway.  It would be 
a kindness to keep them from such useless activities.

And if router manufacturers choose to use software which permits
such restrictions, they may go ahead and do so. While they use
software licensed by the GPL, they may not.

> I cannot conceive of anyone wanting to create lightweight Linux utilities in this day and age.  Certainly not myself and so that 
scenario could never occur.

This may be because you are mentally deranged. Have you thought
of checking for that?

> "Just because!"  Sounds like a small child with no real answer.

The real answer is that the creators of the software want its users
to be able to run, read, modify, and share the code. They chose a
license which guarantees that users will have these rights. Those
who wish to copy and distribute the code must obey its license
because the law otherwise prohibits them from doing this, even if
they themselves do not share the goals of the rights holders.

> Well at least we can define the FSF and SFLC as stupid.  That is a beginning.

No, not the FSF and the SFLC. You.