[mythtv] License

[Rob Smith]

2009/4/2 Myth TV <mythtvmythtv at gmail.com>:
> Well....it matters if you are planning to develop a commercial STB, and you
> dont't want your competitors to take any advantage from your work or your
> ideas. That's the reason why I start this thread, we want to do things
> right, we know and understand what opensource movement represents and we
> want to respect GPL licenses. But would prefer not to release our changes
> source code because of what I've said before and we were wondering if
> there's any way to achieve it.

I don't think you do understand the open source movement. You're
asking to take something the community has worked years on for free
and to use it to better your personal goals without contributing back
to the community. That's quite evil imho.

If you did things right, yes, you would have to open source your
changes, yes your competitors would be able to use them, but you would
also be able to use your competitors, *and* you would be able to
benefit from the community.

I look at it like this. If you have to close off or horde some code to
make your product special, you really don't have a specail product
anyway. There's a pile of companies out there that are very successful
with their open source projects because they bring something extra
beyond the code, and that's worth the money. It might be hardware
integration, or just customer support/services, etc.

'Stealing' from the community is the fastest way to lose the good will
of the people you want on your side...

For specific license questions, you really should contact the FSF
(licensing at fsf.org). They have people who would know how to answer
your specific questions on what you can and can't do legally.

Continuing this thread here is fairly worthless.

~Rob