MS-Funded Study Attacks GPL3 Draft Process

QCMBR writes "A new Microsoft-funded study by a Harvard Business School professor concludes that developers don't want extensive patent licensing requirements in the GPL3. There are significant problems with the study, however, especially given the very small sample size. 'Although 332 emails were sent to various developers, only 34 agreed to participate in the survey — an 11 percent response rate. Of the 34 developers who responded, many of them are associated with projects like Apache and PostgreSQL that don't even use the GPL.' Ars points out that the GPL3 draft editing and review process is highly transparent and inclusive 'to an extent that makes MacCormack's claims of under-representation seem difficult to accept given the small sample size of the study and the number of respondents who contribute to non-GPL projects.'"

Comments

Problems not just with the study...

[apathy maybe]

The piece also leaves a bit to be desired. While it states "Of the 34 developers who responded, many of them are associated with projects like Apache and PostgreSQL that don't even use the GPL.", it neglects to mention how many. Of course, I can't be fucked actually reading the study (it is in PDF after all...). But other then that, it looks OK.

On to the study it self, I agree with the authors point that far more then 34 people have participated in the drafting of the GPL v3. Not only GNU folks, but major corporations.

If nothing else, the GPL drafting process doesn't even need to open. The Free Software Foundation could easily have hidden with some lawyers for a couple of months and then simply presented the new GPL. Obviously all the FSF stuff would go over, as would quite a lot of other stuff that has the V2 or later clause. Most developers aren't lawyers, and I'm sure that they would accept the new GPL, even if they didn't have a say in drafting it (compare version two), so long as it looks alright.

Conclusion, the study is stupid and a waste of time. While I don't use the GPL for my own projects (preferring something simpler), they are quite simple projects. For anything major, the GPL does the job, and will no doubt continue to do the job well into the future.

Where's the S.O.P.?

[Bob9113]

OK, I know that fake studies are a part of Microsoft's standard operating procedure for affecting the standards and codes proposed by governing bodies, but where's the rest? Shouldn't Microsoft be giving zero-interest "loans" to RMS, sending Eben Moglen to play golf in Scotland (a fact-finding tour), and buying a powerboat for Linus?

Seriously, though, who gives a crap what a Harvard professor, funded or unfunded, with or without a good sample size, claims the average developer wants? The GPL is not supposed to be populist, it's supposed to achieve a purpose. A purpose that most of the world - heck, even much if not most of Slashdot's readership - has never fully grasped. A purpose that is diametrically opposed to software patents.