Comment Re:Here's what the GPL says: (Score 2) 75
In our product (part of which functions as a router) we would like to use components of the IP stack found in Linux distributions. Doing so would only require minor modifications (if any) to the GPL'd code to adapt it to our system. The rest of our system would not be derived from any GPL'd code. But the hitch is that our software is distributed in ROM in a piece of physical hardware. It is not possible to distribute our system software without the GPL components as "separate works". Hence the terms of the GPL seem to extend to the entire work and the poison pill goes to work. If the commercial embedded systems market is going to work with the GPL, I think the GPL needs to change the way it defines what is considered a separate work.
Incidentally, I think the embedded systems world could benefit from some open source platform and component developments (like eCos) but the GPL is an inappropriate license for the reasons describe above.
