Re: [cobalt-users] Re: Re: whois...'nt.

["Dylan Smith" <dyls@xxxxxxx>]

> 2. Cobalt could not build a GUI that worked with RedHat and call it
> their own; restricting other people from using it and expanding on it
> - because it's open source. If their GUI in any way relied on the
> RedHat files to interact with itself, then they'd have to make their
> GUI open source as well. So the way they get around this is the
> "Cobalt Sauce" that we so fondly rant about.

In which case, Cobalt don't understand the GPL very well. You CAN make a
tool that uses a GPLed 'grep' without making the tool itself open source.
There is nothing in the GPL saying that you must opensource a program that
calls an executable built from GPLed source. For example, if I write a shell
script that calls grep, I don't have to opensource it. This is a big FUD
misconception that Microsoft like to spread of course - don't fall for it.

Now if they took the source code to 'grep' and incorporated it in their
product - well, yes - then they'd have to GPL their code. That's the spirit
of the GPL: if you base a product on a GPLed source, you must also
contribute.

> So make what you will of it, but maybe those two points explains some
> things. What is truly cumbersome to us - watching /etc/named/records
> wiping out our changes or httpd.conf erasing our tweaks - is
> necessary to keep the GUI from being forced into open source land.

I don't think that's the reason at all. I suspect that real reason is that
Cobalt's designers and management decided that since this was an appliance
(and doing stuff via the shell was not in the model) it was a waste of their
time making the program more complex by modifying rather than overwriting.
They could save many programming hours by simplifying the code by just doing
an overwrite.