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:I'm out

[EveryNickIsTaken]

I'm glad I sold my Novell stock soon after their parnership with Microsoft. This is why Linux users make shitty stock brokers.

The fat fuck needs to STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

EOM

GPL3 won't fly in the real world

[swordgeek]

For some years now, a fair number of companies have been trying to figure out a way of using GPLed programs legitimately in their profit-making operations. Some have been successful, some not so much. (And of course, some companies try to get away with using the software withouth regard for the terms of the GPL, but that's another matter.)

It's not easy--the nature of the GPL runs pretty much counter to how businesses generally work. Still, there's a developing history of success with it.

If widely used, the GPL3 will change that. It is explicitly and methodically being written to be as anti-business as possible. Software released under the GPL3 will be avoided by all companies for any purpose. FOSS will become a hobbiest ghetto, with no commercial potential even for commercially useful software.

Of course, this isn't likely to happen. Realistically, MS will continue to fan the flames of confusion over the legal fuzziness of FOSS, slowing down the spread of good software. Rational developers will ignore the GPL3 and continue to write under more reasonable licenses, either GPL2 or CDDL or the like. ESR, RMS, and (strangely enough) Bruce Perens will end up carrying on a verbal pissing match against a vast throng of nobody at all.

The GPL3 is nothing more than the expression of an anti-business diatribe by a handful of increasingly irrelevant nutters. Nobody cares.

Once again the fanatics take charge

[Master of Transhuman]

Stallman and Bush should be personal buddies.

Perens is a wannabe Stallman, so he's not even relevant here.

None of this makes any sense.

First of all, NOTHING has happened as a result of the Novell-Microsoft deal to actually threaten OSS. NOTHING.

It's ALL speculation.

Second, the FSF and Stallman in particular are fanatics who don't care about anything except being "recognized" for "inventing Linux". Stallman recently wouldn't even talk to a journalist with questions about the GPLv3 - and forbade anyone else inside or OUTSIDE of the FSF to talk to him - unless the journalist agreed FIRST to make all references to Linux as "GNU/Linux."

This tell you everything you need to know about Stallman and the FSF right there.

Third, WHATVER MIGHT happen in the future between Microsoft and the OSS movement, the odds of Microsoft being able to seriously damage the spread of Linux, let alone OSS in general, is virtually nil. First, because much OSS development and Linux adoption will occur in foreign countries who have absolutely NO interest in keeping Bill Gates the richest guy in the world, and second, because anything Microsoft does will simply be circumvented BY CODE. While re-coding large sections of OSS to avoid issues with patents or copyrights might slow the advance of OSS, it might actually speed it up - since even more innovation might be required. In the meantime, nobody is going to shut down the delivery or use of OSS even IF Microsoft were to win some sort of - utterly HYPOTHETICAL - court case declaring that one or more patents were violated by one or more products.

Fourth, if Stallman and crew take the GNU utilities out of action because of GPLv3, the OSS community will simply reinvent them - or better ones - which is long overdue in many cases. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. There's nothing about these utilities that make them invulnerable to change. Any license changes will not impact existing tools anyway. As someone else pointed out, how often does "ls" change - and who cares?

Fifth, what happens when the FSF drives itself to ruin with this crap? Will Stallman start demanding PATENTS on FSF tools? That's at least as likely - since his only interest is CONTROL, NOT "freedom", in fact - as Gates managing to sue all of OSS...

I mean, it isn't even rational to consider this. It's all bullshit. Microsoft did this sort of deal for various reasons of its own, none of which are any more likely to pan out to their benefit than Iraq did for Bush (unless you think as I do that the mess in Iraq WAS Bush's intention - for which an argument could be made.)

All we have here are a bunch of greedy morons on one side trying to work some kind of half-ass deal and a bunch of fanatics on the other side using it to drum up support for their own agenda.

BOTH of them do NOT have the future of OSS and its application to the advancement of IT as their motivations.

Meanwhile, Novell puts out a usable Linux distro. It's irrelevant what their management does as long as they don't fuck up the DISTRO (which isn't unlikely, given how most distros are messed up these days.) Dumping SUSE because of this deal is just stupid.

Bottom line: fergeddaboutit.

Linus is right. The GPLv3 is not a good idea as long as it is being used to push a fanatical agenda with no basis in common sense. He's also right in that it is not likely to matter.