[Arm-netbook] Patent-Left

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 2:29 AM, Hendrik Boom <hendrik at topoi.pooq.com> wrote:

> And all you have to do to distribute uder a GPL licence is ths bake sure
> that there are no certification marks in it.
>
> That doesn't mean you can't have source code that can be compile-time
> parameterized with a certificatin mark.
>
> But anyone modifying the certiied source code will presumably have to
> have it recertified before using the certification mark on it.

 ... *thinks*.... ok so let's think this through.

 what do proprietary companies owning Certification Marks do.... o
arse, you're right: they charge staggeringly-large amounts of money
and place huge burdens on people.  FCC 2G/3G/LTE Certification (per
firmware revision, per product, per *version* of product, per
*company* e.g. AT&T... $50k *EACH*...), BLE Certification (USD $10,000
per software release *per factory*), and so on.

 that's gonna get really old, really quickly.

 i know that the FSF, whom people are in effect "Authorised to
Represent" when they received the RYF Endorsement Certification Mark,
simply trust people to "get it right".  they *don't* ask that people
"re-certify", they said to me, basically, "you represent us and our
good name, don't screw up by doing things like add proprietary
firmware on it, or modify the description so people get confused and
buy the wrong thing".

 they *didn't* say "You Must Re-Certify If You Make Even One Tiny Change".

 so i believe there's room for both types of approaches... the
question is: which approach could risk causing harm?  btw, just to be
clear: anyone who *guarantees* full libre compliance (releases
everything under libre licenses - casework, CAD, source, everything)
zero charges *and* assistance in any way possible.

 l.