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KDE to RMS: That's Absurd.
A retierd War Corespondant writes "KDE has issued a formal response to RMS' latest editorial on KDE and GPLed QT. Favorite Quote: "This entire thing is just too absurd and we refuse to play this game." They also point to the listing of licenses and Authors within KDE." Update: 09/06 11:38 AM by H :Some of the authors have written as well.
And then, at some point, the intervening centuries come crashing down, with a resounding, "What the heck!?!" Did this guy really... no, I already know, he did really believe all this. He absolutely lived in this elaborate, invisible realm, which requires the most careful tread once you've made it your own.
RMS manages to evoke the same sort of response from his contemporaries; and small wonder, since his own moral realm seems absolutely personal, mostly crafted by his own hand. Suddenly, just when you least expect it, RMS feels it absolutely necessary to... forgive you.
Odd duck, but I like him. You can certainly tell why he was such a coder anyway... sitting down to the keyboard, he's just slipping from one abstraction to another.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
As a laywer without the described credentials, I'll second werdna. This does not take specialized knowledge in copyright law to see Stallman's behavior as petty and hypertechnical.
For that matter, it doesn't even require legal training--note the description of how KDE has been singled out as needing forgiveness, whereas past alleged violations have not seen such treatment.
hawk, esq., not giving legal advice
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Can't anybody do anything without violating either a) The DMCA
b) The GPL
c) IP Laws
Sheesh. I'm going back to law school.
:wq
I agree that the need for a legal "forgiveness" for distributing GPL'ed code linked with Qt is absurd. But is it the law that is absurd, or RMS interpretation of the law?
Probably a bit of both, I can't see any logic flaws in RMS's interpretation, but he has always been much more strict in following copyright law to the letter than just about everyone else, where other people ignore problems that would never occur in practice.
Sometimes this pays off, like when he insisted that the GNU project developed its own patent free compression program (gzip), while just about everyone else was satisfied with using compress and LZW, and trusted the vague statements from Unisys that they would never enforce their patent on software only systems.
What is wrong to do is to take this as an insult to KDE. Being paranoid about copyright law is a fundamental part of RMS's nature.
Now it's been argued that his last editorial is absurd. Here's what I have to say: RMS has probably a lot more legal background than most people at KDE and on Slashdot (including me). Unless you are a lawyer specialized in Copyrights, just shut up and give him a break!
As a lawyer with the credentials you describe, I'm here to state that the previous postings, criticizing RMS remarks as hypertechnical and petty, were fair accounts. RMS response clearly sets forth more of a personal preference for Gnome than a legal argument in opposition to the use of KDE/Qt.
This was no subtle legal defense of GPL, and to the extent it was, it was more than adequately answered by the KDE author's response. It requires no subtle expertise in computer law to understand these arguments -- pettiness is as pettiness does.
OK, some may find that RMS is a bit zealous about licenses... but how much do YOU know about all the legal stuff involved in mixing licenses? I say he's taking the right approch: to be paranoid with the GPL. How many scream when a vendor ships a (free as in beer) modified version of Linux with its hardware? If the "OSS community" (I'm assuming it's a united organization, though I know it is not) is to stand up against GPL violations, it should first make sure that it doesn't violate the GPL itself in any way. That includes the KDE/Qt stuff.
Now it's been argued that his last editorial is absurd. Here's what I have to say: RMS has probably a lot more legal background than most people at KDE and on Slashdot (including me). Unless you are a lawyer specialized in Copyrights, just shut up and give him a break!
He's been trying to defend Free Software (for better or worse) for much longer that anyone else and he's trying to prevent bad things from happenning not in the short (1-2 years) term, but the long (10-15 years) term.
At last, remember (and this is not RMS-specific) that if it was only about KDE developpers (ie no one else complaining), Qt probably wouldn't even have been released with the QPL (much less the GPL) and that would have been real bad. I know that the KDE developpers just want to code and don't want to bother with licensing issues, but some things have to be done. Since the KDE people didn't bother clearing up the Qt licensing issue, people from the outside took care of that, with the results (wars) we know.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
After reading some of the comments and the article posters blurb, I clicked the link expecting vitriol and flame but all I see is reasonableness and calmness on the part of the KDE developers.
All they've said is that RMS claims that before KDE can switch the license on the code, all copyright holders need to explicitly approve it ("grant forgiveness"). KDE claims that most have (since they are KDE developers) except for two modules that weren't written specifically for KDE but can be rewritten if need be to make sure all of KDE is compatible.
Heck, they even list modules and email addresses of developers so they can be contacted to make sure that they actually OK the license switch and thus noone's copyright is being violated.
All in all, reasoned and mature reactions. Kudos to KDE.
(-1 Troll)
Seriously, /. is "shiny things for geeks". I think the story approval process is:
/. worth reading, and the community that creates the discussion. The articles are just decoys that happen to call the right kind of people here.
1) read submission, if not immediately compelled to follow the link, toss it out
2) follow link, if link is obviously not as described by submission on first glance, toss it out
3) post submission to front page, don't stop to check trivial details like facts or spelling
4) read the linked article
Journalistic integrity doesn't even come into it. It is not only amateur, but lazy. If it sounds really cool (to someone who has top-level posting privileges), it goes up. It's that simple, and, yes, that stupid.
It sorta works, too. Since it's interesting, and there's a discussion forum, all the relevant facts get posted and modded up by the readers. Really, the articles aren't what we're here for. Each article is just the topic of the hour. It's the discussion that makes
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I have a copy of the source of glibc-2.0.105 sitting on my hard drive. In inet/rexec.c (amongst other files) what do I see but a file under the BSD licence including the advertising clause. Clearly I have no rights to this code since it cannot be distributed under the GPL.
Thankfully, in 2.1, the advertising clause has been removed. But nonetheless, I expect a full apology from the FSF for breaking the terms of the original BSD licence and forgiveness from the Regents of the University of California so that I can be assured that I may use glibc2 without let or hinderance.
I await my apology.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
There is a danger in branding one person the "final and sole authority" in any revolution. And make no mistake, Free Software is a revolution.
Yes, RMS wrote the license. But if he remains the only authority on the interpretation of that license, then what does any other participant have? Basically, they have what RMS lets them have, and nothing more.
If Richard Stallman is not willing to let other people participate in his revolution -- as equals, not as subordinates -- then they'll go off and start their own. That's precisely what the XEmacs people did, and that's precisely what the KDE people did... and that's what Eric Raymond did. And that's what a lot of people are doing. They're going their own way because the Old Guard won't give an inch.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Okay, this is all a little out of control here. Does anyone actually read the articles? I followed both links then went and read the comments people have posted. I would have sworn that everyone else had read a couple of different stories. The comments people have given these two articles make it seem as though RMS and the KDE teams were flaming each other relentlessly. Instead the articles are very mild, and for the most part just restating facts
What is my take on the situation? I think it is spawned by a few posters who have never heard legal jargon. The term 'Forgive' is not used in a moralistic sense, but in a specific legal sense.
Get over it, RMS gave a nice little article which actually seemed to cheer on KDE for going GPL compatible. He listed a few minor issues that needed to be touched up on and went so far as to note that he, as the copyright holder for FSF code, was taking the first step in clearing the last of the hurdles of making KDE completely GPL compatible.
SO where exactly is the problem, is it that Richard Stallman cheers for Gnome? What the heck would you expect? Enough flames okay? The holy war is over, it was a tie.
Once upon a time, there was an operating system named Unix. A fine operating system by the standards of several there - not merely in technical value, but in fun value. For across the nation and indeed the world, many hackers were given leave to play with this Operating System, and have great fun with it. There was a bit of foreshadowed warning in that it was owned ultimately by AT&T's Bell Labs, but this was not noticed as they were docile.
Once upon a time, there was a man named Richard M. Stallman. He was not a famous man (not to the world at large, at least), nor was he a man of any combination of unique qualities. He was another hacker, another UNIX lover, another programmer enjoying the relative freedom in early Unix.
And then AT&T Bell Labs returned, took over Unix and claimed it all for their own, destroying the freedom that grew from this system and making many hackers unhappy.
So RMS went forth and formed the Free Software Foundation and started, with several friends, the GNU Operating System project. And much progress was made on it, and it was Good.
Now...
Once upon a time, there was an operating system named Linux. Started by a Helsinki hacker with a school project to finish, it became embraced by several hackers toying with what was slowly becoming the complete GNU OS. With the combination of the GNU OS tools (free for use by all except those who would try to take them permanently), the Linux Operating System began to take the world by fire. There was a bit of foreshadowed warning in that those GNU tools, and indeed the whole of Linux, were under Richard Stallman's GNU General Public Liscence, and thus subject to his whim and the whim of the Free Software Foundation, but this was ignored as RMS was a freedom fighter, and it was well known he would never take Linux away.
Or was it?
When Bell Labs was looked at, many disadvanatages were evident. Bell Labs is corporate-owned; it survives by putting profit first, and AT&T had a reputation for doing Bad Things with the consumer.
When we look at RMS, many disadvantages are evident. RMS is only human; he has backstabbed, grown arrogant (see Emacs vs. Xemacs), and the cynical would say that he has become convinced that the only way Freedom can be defended is if he alone does it.
Library GPL to "Lesser" GPL. "Don't use the BSD Liscence". Emacs vs. XEmacs. "GNU/Linux". "The X Consortium has betrayed us". "xxx is not compatible with the GPL, so it is bad". "Boycott Amazon".
"KDE is still in violation".
Are we, possibly, at all going to take the hint?
-Jo Hunter
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Would you like Linus as your boss? Larry Wall as your supervisor? Brian Behendorf as your team leader? Now, would you like RMS as your co-worker?
Yes, Yes, Yes and... Yes.
RMS is a hard liner, there is no doubt about it. What people seem to forget, however, is that it took a hard liner like RMS to get the ball rolling. RMS was necessary in the grand scheme of things, without RMS or another hard liner who stuck to his guns and just plain simply refused to give an inch we'd not have all the wonderful choices we have today, we'd all be running Windows 95 (because there'd be no reason for MS to improve its OS, no competition), shelling out hundreds, thousands of dollars for unreliable proprietary software, and being locked into vendors.
People around here don't give RMS enough credit, and condemn him for doing the very thing that started this whole movement.
-- iCEBaLM
without RMS or another hard liner who stuck to his guns and just plain simply refused to give an inch we'd not have all the wonderful choices we have today, we'd all be running Windows 95
(hrm)FreeBSD(cough)XFree86(blurgh)lcc(hrrump)
(I could go on, but I think that last one was a lung)
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