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Linux Creator Calls GPLv3 Authors 'Hypocrites'
AlexGr writes "We've heard conflicting tales regarding Linus Torvalds' acceptance of GPLv3. InformationWeek reports on comments by Mr. Torvalds that would seem to decide the issue: 'Torvalds said the authors of a new software license expected to be used by thousands of open source programmers are a bunch of hypocrites ... For Torvalds' part, it appears unlikely he'll ever adopt GPLv3 for the Linux kernel. He accused the Free Software Foundation leadership, which includes eccentric, MIT-trained computing whiz Richard Stallman, of injecting their personal morality into the laws governing open source software with the release of GPLv3. "Only religious fanatics and totalitarian states equate morality with legality," Torvalds wrote.'"
Personally speaking, I think that Stallman has been getting worse about it as time goes on.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
No, you wrote a new system because NIH affects open source projects as much as it affects closed development.
There was a choice of about two dozen distributed revision control systems around at the time that Linus decided to go with his mate's proprietary product, Bitkeeper, and there was about twice as many as that after that fiasco came to the head that everyone said it would but Linus was incapable of seeing. So instead of just pickup one of these many systems and improve it as necessary, he declared that he knew better and made the monstrosity that is git. Meanwhile, everyone else is using Darcs or Bazaar.
How we know is more important than what we know.
One thing I've always wondered is, if the GNU is all about 'open source' and 'free as in freedom' software...there are a few really basic incompatibilities with *freedom*, and the GPL, and associated licenses.
For instance, I understand that they're trying to promote reciprocal freedom, but *freedom* implies directly that, well, you shouldn't have drastic, overarching restrictions on what people are legally allowed to do with software. The GPL puts a lot of restrictions on what you can't do, and what you're required to do if you even get near it, link to it, or do anything else. Mind, they actually consider dynamic linking to ANY library, to be directly considered a 'derivative work' (it's in the FAQ, and yes, also applies to LGPL).
And, for another, if they were so interested in 'freedom', and 'open source', why not provide an exemption towards "you must be GPL too, lol lol", for other verifiably open source licenses? For instance, if there's a common GPLed library out there to reproduce functionality available by standard on other platforms (there are quite a few), and I make a BSD licensed program, it would be a GPL violation. How fun is that?
A practical example is MySQL. You can only use GPLed programs linking against the client libraries (necessary to communicate with the server sanely). This arose over a misunderstanding that the company behind MySQL had about the LGPL. They thought that under the LGPL, it was legitimate for another program to static link against it (including the server parts), and redistribute a modified version with their program, but they wouldn't have to give away any modified source. Of course, that's incorrect for many reasons, and a lot of people are screwed (or have to keep trying to convince stubborn developers and hosting companies to use the more ANSI compliant PostgreSQL anyway).
And I've been finding Torvalds himself (and the Linux community in general) extremely hypocritical about licensing issues.
Torvalds and others have been basically flaming Sun for having their own code licensed under CDDL (which many people have misconceptions about nonetheless). They have every right to do that, no? Linux and most 'open source' software designed at all for Linux has been pretty explicitly incompatible with Solaris. What right does the Linux community (and Torvalds in particular) to a double standard where everything Sun and Solaris MUST be explicitly Linux compatible, but nothing at all Linux is even asked to be Solaris compatible?
OpenSolaris and *BSD (and BSD/X11/MIT/etc licensed) projects have contributed a great deal towards the community, but effectively, Linux and GPL-specific projects contribute absolutely nothing back, but then expect everything to be contributed back to them.
In the end, GPL (even GPLv3) hurts open source software much more than it hurts proprietary. There are ways to get around GPL licensing problems, including using a simple binary shim front-end (which you'd have to release the code for) to a library, but then use that binary to interface with a library or other code that's otherwise incompatible (since no linking is done). You simply can't get away with that with an open source project, but proprietary has a free pass. So, if they cared that much about open source, how would it dilute it at all to, for instance, have an exemption that allows open source licensed programs to interface with GPLed libraries (and similar situations)? If someone tried to "embrace" the program and make it proprietary, they wouldn't be privy to the same exemption.
It seems increasingly difficult to accept GNU as a legitimate thing for issues such as that, even if it's intended to exclude other (even 'GPL compatibly licensed', such as BSD) open source as well.
"A Goddess rarely smiles for she is forced by others to be an island unto herself." - Zephiris
How we know is more important than what we know.
It's always been an endless source of amusement to me how FOSSies say their software is supposedly "free"... but they still want to "own" it!!! GPLv3, aka the "stick it to Microsoft edition", is a good example of this. If you are going to make "free" software, STOP HOLDING ON TO IT!!! It's FREE!!! As in "no strings attached"... otherwise it's not really "free".
But targeting a license solely against a single company... hmm, that doesn't sound like freedom to me. It's just like FOSSies to pursue a radical agenda, and manipulate other people into supporting it.
People need to put the FREE back into FREE and Open Source Software. GPL3 is just an attempt to hijack FOSS.