On Fri, 2002-03-22 at 07:44, Claus Färber wrote:
No, that's plain wrong. The Directive 91/250/EEC clearly says: | Whereas an objective of this exception is to make it possible to | connect all components of a computer system, including those of | different manufacturers, so that they can work together; (where it is clear from later paragraphs that components refers to both hard and software.)
Why can't different manufacturers work together? How come a change from ASF's httpd to GPL'ed would fall under antitrust law?
Let's keep in mind a few things: a) manufacturers can continue to develop their own versions of apache httpd based under a lower version that has the ASL b) manufacturers of proprietary stuff are those who are having a more restrictive license. The change is benefitial to competition, just not to their licensing model. c) they are not excluded from developing with apache, they choose to exclude themselves by not willing to comply with a license that would break their monopoly on the proprietary extension.
A change of apache httpd to GPL would not hinder competition in favour of ASF but enlarge competition. To comply with the new license, the proprietary extension maker would have to open the extension to competitors. He can simple take an older version of apache httpd and develop on it.
Cheers, rui