Screaming Penguin

In case you missed it on /., a really great article at the ACM Site by Jim Barton on how TiVo makes use of Open Source Software in a business environment. Interestingly, he comments that some people from the FSF feel that closed source runtime modules for the Linux Kernel are a GPL violation, even though Linus himself has OKed it. Especially given the GCC forays into Java libraries and ahead of time compiling of Java with the GCJ API, it might be time to really take a look at the GPL/LGPL relation and decide what exactly is meant by hard linking, soft linking and how this applies to "applications" running inside Open Source pluggable systems, rather than simple and traditional compiler views of the universe. As more and more time passes, any confusion on this point could harm the GPL more than help it, especially when Apache and BSD licensed software has much more relaxed standards for closed or semi-closed uses.