Perens Rains on Novell's Parade

unum15 writes "This week is Novell's Brainshare conference. They are touting the Microsoft covenant not to sue as 'good for consumers'. However, Bruce Perens decided to take this opportunity to 'rain on Novell's parade'. Perens read a statement from RMS affirming the GPLv3 would not allow companies to enter deals like this and continue to offer GPLv3 software. Perens even goes as far as to suggest this move is an exit strategy by Novell. There are also audio and pictures of the event available."

Comments

Re:On Novell being obtuse

[CRiMSON]

What amazes me is the fact that this will be the second time Microsoft will have done it to Novell. You'd have thought they would of learned something.

Re:People hold high expectations on Novell

[bigredradio]

I have to disagree with ya there. Sure, they are a commercial company and their goal is to make money. Big Surprise! However, in this effort, they have contributed a substantial amount of code to the kernel, gnome, and numerous other projects. I'm as uneasy about a deal with MS as anyone, but to start bashing them because they are a commercial company and they contribute to Linux is a bit short sighted.

I don't like the way they are handling Gnome

If you do not like, what they have done with gnome, then you can contribute or use KDE, XFCE, twm, etc.

appease to Windows "converted" users

Are you kidding me? Softening the transition (which is an option btw, you can change this), would be a smart move for all linux developers. If we create a completely foreign system, then it is that much harder to get people to use, promote and contribute to linux. Otherwise we are left with a select few and linux stays in the basement.

bundling Mono, pfff

I hate to break it to you, but there are a lot of users that are locked in because they rely on .NET apps. If you supply mono, then there is a better opportunity they can transition their current custom apps and use linux.

Novell may not be my favorite Linux company, but you can't discount the contribution because of unfounded "fears" about "some day they will ruin linux". If they walked away today, I would at least say "Thank you for all that you had contributed". Without companies like, IBM, Novell, RedHat, Canonical and others, linux would still be where it was at 5-6 years ago. Today it is a viable alternative to MS Windows for the desktop, and is replacing Solaris, AIX and HP-UX in record numbers.

Re:War is peace

[NickFortune]

GPL doesn't restrict anything. Copyright laws do.

A lot of people would disagree with that. Hell, the GPL disagrees with that:

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.

See? "restrictions". Just because they are lesser restrictions than the default case of "no rights at all", that doesn't mean they ain't restrictive.

I'm a big fan of the GPL myself, but let's try not to sacrifice accuracy to zealotry here.

Re:War is peace

[vivaoporto]

See? "restrictions". Just because they are lesser restrictions than the default case of "no rights at all", that doesn't mean they ain't restrictive.

That's semantics. GPL doesn't restrict anything that you would be able to do with standard copyright law. Copyright law says you can't do A, B, C, D and E. GPL says you can now do A, B, C. How is that restricting?

Notice, I'm not denying GPL has more conditions than BSD or Public Domain. All I'm saying is that has one goal, to make sure any software and all its derivatives under that license will be able to be freely run, studied, derived and distributed. They never hid that goal, it is the GNU manifesto, for god sake. If they could simply say that, in a clear and unambiguously way, such confusions would never exist in the first place. But because of the likes of Tivo, Novell and others, that will try to find a loophole and release derivative works without granting those rights, FSF has to created this tangled network of legalese, to close as many holes as they can.

Re:War is peace

[Chris Burke]

"Restrictive" is not the opposite of "free" though, which is what the GGP was implying.

I am not free to own slaves. Am I restricted, or is everyone else more free? The answer is everyone is more free because nobody can own slaves.

Similarly, the GPL only restricts your ability to restrict others. This means the fewest restrictions for all. Isn't that the most freedom possible? Free to do anything but take freedom from others.

The GPL's restrictions are only anti-free to those who think only of themselves. The GPL is not for them.

^ Why is parent modded flamebait? ^

[Anti-Trend]

Even free speech involves responsibilities.
Why is the parent modded flamebait? This seems pretty reasonable to me. When the constructors of the US Constitution drafted the first amendment, I'm sure that yelling "fire!" maliciously in a crowded public building wasn't what they had in mind. Instead, it's a specific type of freedom which has a few limitations. However, these limitations are important to preserve the function and spirit of said rights. The same goes for the GPL.

By releasing code under the GPL, I'm saying effectively, "you can have my code for free, and even change whatever you want, provided you don't restrict anyone else from doing the same." The BSD license allows the author to say, "use whatever you like, and you can close up my source code and not share with anybody if you want to." If that license is more attractive to you, than by all means, release your code under the BSD license instead of GPL. But like me, many people want the guarantee of the continuing freedom of the code they release. For those of us who feel that way, the GPL is exactly the right license.