Slashback: Forbes, VoIP, Firefly

Sit back, read Slashback. Tonight, (another) revision to the "Hidden Agenda" collegiate games contest, torrent files for the new Mandrake release, and the by turns heated-and-cool responses to Forbes' unfriendly description of the FSF -- for attempting to protect their copyrights -- as Linux's "hit men." Read on below for the details.

Hey, this approach works for the New York Post ... digidave writes "The fallout from Dan's Linux's Hit Men article on Forbes.com has pushed Forbes.com into putting up a discussion board, where Dan [Lyons] has posted his response"

And unmadindu writes "FSF's Bradley Kuhn has responded to the Forbes article ( reported earlier at Slashdot). Read the short, but to-the-point response at Linux Today." Kuhn's response is remarkable in its restraint.

Reader Waldo Jaquith sent the text of Lyon's first posting; an excerpt serves to illustrate its tone:

"Of course the Free Software Foundation is entitled to enforce its GNU General Public License (GPL), just as other organizations are entitled to enforce their copyrights and licenses. My article simply points out that the paradoxical effect of these "enforcement actions" (FSF's term) may be to impede the adoption of Linux. By demanding that licensees publish source code for their own "derivative work" code (in addition to the Linux they're using) the FSF is, in effect, charging a royalty that approaches 100% of the value of the licensee's product."

Some of the postings in response are very impressive; I especially like this one.

Dragonfly Forum Logs are scintillating reading. drdink writes "SlashNET would like to thank Matthew Dillon and everyone who attended the Dragonfly BSD Q&A forum session. Logs are available both in text and HTML formats."

You get to keep your base. Stealthgirl writes "The Hidden Agenda Game Development Contest, which received quite a bit of interest but also a lot of flak for its IP rules, has adapted the rules to appease those who were griping on sites like Slashdot. Check out this post for more info." Up to the entrants to decide if they like the rules of any contest, of course.

Leech friendly, with public Mandrake 9.2 torrents. An anonymous reader writes "Public torrents for the first two of the Mandrake 9.2 ISOs are up (I and II). Anybody cares to share the third?"

Sir? It's reality calling, on line two, from Anywhere. Marcelo Rodriguez (gardel on Slashdot), editor of Voxilla.com, writes: "We've posted the complete text of Federal Judge Mike Davis' ruling in Vonage v. Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on Voxilla.com. ... It's pretty much a slam dunk for Vonage and VoIP. Judge Davis wrote that Congress mandates that 'that information services such as those provided by Vonage must not be regulated by state law.' He also wrote that 'State regulation would effectively decimate Congress's mandate that the Internet remain unfettered by regulation.'"

Comments

And the point is??

[moocat2]

My article simply points out that the paradoxical effect of these "enforcement actions" (FSF's term) may be to impede the adoption of Linux.

That is an interesting but very myopic comment. One could just as easily say that the pardoxical effect of charging money may be to impede the adoption of Windows.

But no with half a brain would ever make that point. The goal of a corporation is to make profit and adoption of their software is simply a means to an end.

And my experience with my friends who license with GPL is that their goal is to affect a social change in how software is used and distributed. If their goal is simply go get as much adoption as possible, they would most likely use a different license.

Once again, the problem is that for many people, any goal that is not about making money is just incomprehensible. In the end, this story is just another sad commentary on our society's priorities.