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.'"

Comments

duh

[Danathar]

"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."

Does this mean that Linus didn't understand that the FSF is a organization with specific goals based on the morals of it's members? It's kinda obvious.

Re:duh

[Chris Burke]

Considering the GPL starts with a non-legalese description of the moral philosophy behind the GPL, I find it hard to fathom how anyone could think the FSF was from the beginning "injecting their personal morality into the laws governing open source software". Duh, the whole existence of the Free Software movement and the GPL is due to RMS' moral views on software and the rights of users.

And while I may not agree completely with the language of GPLv3, it still seems perfectly consistant with the moral view that RMS has been expressing since the 80s. Every new thing in GPLv3 is there to try to close a loophole that allowed someone to not grant the rights RMS believes users should have. I have no idea how Linus can call them hypocrits. I was with him more when he was simply saying that it was misguided.

Linus is a smart guy, and he wisely avoids the morality/politics of the FSF most of the time. But he ain't perfect and his decisions to sacrifice principles for practicality can come back to bite him -- see Bitkeeper for a poignant example of how "choose the best tool for the job" but ignoring the license and how that affects the tool's usefulness is the wrong way to be pragmatic and apolitical.

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

The use of the word "moral" isn't an invention of Linus, that's the word RMS uses to describe it himself. That means RMS is declaring himself a religious leader, which is patently absurd.

Newsflash: morality does not require religion.

Re:duh

[Chibi Merrow]

I wonder if he used vi or emacs to to write that.... /me ducks

I'm torn between being so happy that someone finally understood and so depressed that it took so many replies and crazy moderations before that happened...

I can't claim to be an old timer and firsthand familiar with these things, but it seems to me so many young GNU adherents don't understand how much being a hacker already approaches a religion (especially in the negative aspects of organized religion) without someone PURPOSELY trying to espouse religious philosophy. We already have enough heresies, inquisitions, and crusades amongst people who are just trying to get work done or do research... When you start ordaining prophets and messiahs, you're asking for trouble.

Then again half the people reading what I'm writing are probably equating the word "hacker" with some black hat stealing their credit card numbers and defacing websites...

I'm with Richard

[Anonymous Coward]

His point of view represents all of the reasons why I left proprietary software and went with Linux.

Ahem, GNU/Linux.

The kernel can be replaced.

The philosophy, which is 100% wholly accurate, cannot.

And this is news?

[www.sorehands.com]

We always knew that RMS is a zealot. I ran into him quite a bit in the 1980s. I could tell that then. While one may have thought it was a bit much then, now is it that radical? Companies are putting rootkits into computers in the name of DRM, sponsoring bills that allow copyright holders to hack into your system and destroy YOUR system with immunity -- if they think that you may have violated their copyright.

Is GPL 3 that unreasonable given the behavior of the RIAA and MPAA of recent?

Re:And this is news?

[Chibi Merrow]

Is GPL 3 that unreasonable given the behavior of the RIAA and MPAA of recent?

Yes.

Don't try to out-badguy corporate scum. They have budgets for it, you don't. Extending a software license to limit hardware manufacturers is ridiculous.

Nevermind the fact that this has NOTHING to do with the RIAA and MPAA, will accomplish nothing vis a vis their war on piracy, and so I'm confused as to exactly why the hell you brought them up.

Attention

[El Lobo]

Could everybody get back to coding and kiss politics goodbye? WTF is everybody doing these days? It seems like every single programming in the world is now a politician... Long gone are the days where programming was considered a noble art of logics and things were so uncomplicated... Humans are a strange animal, indeed... Instead of producing more, we must complicate things and waste our valuable with egoistic intrigues, politics, strange licence deals, and... oh well...

What Linus really said

[delire]

Was..

I don't think it's hypocritical to prefer the GPLv3. That's a fine choice, it's just not *mine*.

. What I called hypocritical was to do so in the name of "freedom", while you're at the same time trying to argue that I don't have the "freedom" to make my own choice.

See? THAT is hypocritical.

and..

In a very real sense, the GPLv3 asks people to do things that I personally would refuse to do. I put Linux on my kids computers, and I limit their ability to upgrade it. Do I have that legal right (I sure do, I'm their legal guardian), but the point is that this is not about "legality", this is about "morality". The GPLv3 doesn't match what I think is morally where I want to be. I think it *is* ok to control peoples hardware. I do it myself.

The rest here.

Re:Fork?

[OriginalArlen]

Exactly. Some people say the GPL is evil and viral. This is because they either do not understand it properly, or because they disagree with it. If you are in avour of free software, you can go the GPL route or the BSD route. You writes your code and takes your choice... the GPL is one of the most elegant hacks ever, and having been involved in some legal shenangans on the topic, I can honestly say I've never known anything else that can ruin a lawyer's day quite so effectively. It's a fucking work of art.

Pardon my language, it's late and I had a long week... (bloody Belgians!!... don't ask.)

Read the original

[jopet]

That article can create some misunderstandings about what Torvalds actually said and meant. If you want to form your own opinion, read the email discussion thread (it is huge) at http://marc.info/?t=118136815500004&r=36&w=4 and Linus' posts e.g. at http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=118235728513045 &w=4 and http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=118236278730043 &w=4 .

I think Linus' statements make much more sense in context.

For instance, several posters here have responded to "Only religious fanatics and totalitarian states equate 'morality' with 'legality'," by pointing out that all western legal systems represent morality in some way. However that is missing the point, and I think, not what Linus meant. Democratic systems compromise on a *common* idea of how morality should be represented by laws. This is entirely different from religious fanatics or totalitarian states where the moral ideas of an individual or small group is the only acceptable one. The point Linus is making here is that the GPLv3 is used as a vehicle to impose upon others the ideas of a few and regulate what Linus thinks should be a matter of choice.

I agree with Linus point of view: it might be wrong to trust in the choice of users. Maybe users will not do what I wish they would do - not buy DRM protected music etc. Maybe this will lead to a point where Linux needs a program that can play DRM protected media. But still, I think that taking that choice away from future Linux users would be the totalitarian way of trying to achieve things. Personally I would not want that. I hate DRM, software patents, vendor lock it, but as a *NIX user of more than a decade, I do not want Linux (and other open source software) to become the blunt weapon of a few fanatics instead of an inviting and competitive alternative.

Re:Fork?

[gujo-odori]

"I also consider this to make it evil, but that's a separate issue"

That's the distinction that often gets missed in the "evil/viral" argument, I wish I had mod points to give you.

Sure, the GPL is viral. I don't think anyone really denies that. Some think that's evil, some not. I'm in the "not" camp.

The reason I'm in the "not" camp is because the viral nature of the GPL is not primarily intended to cause someone's non-GPL software to unintentionally fall under the GPL; rather, it is a defensive mechanism aimed at the misappropriation of GPLed software. To wit, you can't use GPLed software in non-free software, and to make sure you don't, the license requires you to release any software you combine with GPLed software under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license. In practice, people who don't want to do that have generally been given the option of ripping out all the GPLed software from their product(s) and duplicating the functionality on their own.

I have no problem with this. The GPL isn't trying to hide anything or get Free software in through the back door. It tells you up front what your rights and obligations are, and like other FOSS licenses, is orders of magnitude more clear about that than proprietary licenses. The GPL requires that if you get, you have to give back, and you can do anything you want with GPLed software except make it non-free. I have no problem with that. It's clear and up-front, and if anyone doesn't like it, the answer is simple: use something else, write it yourself, or pay someone to write it yourself. Those are the same three options you have with a proprietary license you don't like. Well, with the additional stricture that if you write it yourself or have someone do it, the proprietary vendor might look for some software patent violation they could use as grounds to sue you.

Software licenses are not "evil" or "good" - they just are. They reflect the beliefs and values of those who right them. The FSF believes you can do anything you want with software except make it non-free. BSD and similar believe you can even make it non-free. Proprietary licenses believe you can only do what they specifically authorize you to do, and what they authorize really isn't a whole lot. If I were going to sling terms like "evil" around, I daresay the target wouldn't be any open-source license.

Re:Fork?

[Surt]

I believe the (not inconsistent) position is that copyright is bad for society. So the GPL exploits the flaws of copyright in order to make the flaws in copyright extremely painful (or impossible) for others to exploit. In the event that copyright is abolished, then the GPL becomes both unenforceable and unnecessary at the same time.

Exactly the problem with GPLv3

[CaffeineJedi]

Proprietary licenses believe you can only do what they specifically authorize you to do (emphasis added), and what they authorize really isn't a whole lot. If I were going to sling terms like "evil" around, I daresay the target wouldn't be any open-source license.

While the above post never referred to GPLv3 specifically, I think it made a good and interesting point. I will hijack this part for my own purposes :-)

Fundamentally, I think the poster's quote is one of the biggest arguments against the adoption of GPLv3.

GPL version 2 had no restrictions on what hardware was required upon which to run the software. The license merely required that all modifications to the software were contributed back to the original work. It did not care how you used the software, merely how you contributed back to the project.

Version 3, on the other hand, makes statements about how software is used. As far as I can tell, TiVo is one of the most predominant factors in spurring GPLv3. TiVo contributes their software back to the community, as can be seen right here. TiVo, however, runs their software on a DRM'ed box. Anybody can use TiVo's source code modifications in their own hardware projects if they so desire. The software is still just as free as if TiVo decided to run it on a non-DRM'ed box.

The FSF believes you can do anything you want with software except make it non-free This is what the FSF would like people to believe. However, it is inconsistent with what the FSF is actually doing in advocating GPLv3. GPLv2 ensured that all software remained free. The old license fully satisified that software remained "free," not just in price but in the availability of people to choose how to use it.

GPLv3, on the other hand, makes restrictions upon what kind of hardware-software interactions are allowable. Forcing people, corporations, or whomever to use freely available code in a certain way is contradictory to freedom. This is the argument for version 2 of the GPL. It is also the argument against DRM. Strangely enough, it is also the argument against GPLv3.

Enforcing freedom is an oxymoron. This however, is the logical extent of what RMS and people at the FSF are proposing with the adoption of GPLv3, forcing people to run their software on certain hardware. In the words of the poster, the FSF acting exactly like proprietary vendors in limiting the scope of their software to what they "specifically authorize you to do."

Re:Exactly the problem with GPLv3

[totally bogus dude]

What is it that you want, personally and exactly, from Tivo?

I personally don't want anything from TiVo; I've never used any of their products, and don't expect I ever will. They could magically reflash every TiVo on the planet, rendering it incapable of doing anything except playing a rather bad game of Pong, and I wouldn't care. I mentioned them purely as an example (and because everyone else was doing it).

How did Tivo not keep up its end of the bargain?

That's exactly the point: TiVo did keep up its end of the bargain. They did not violate the license in any way, shape or form. Yet, people who bought TiVo's were unable to make full use of the freedoms that the GPL (as a Free software license) was supposed to guarantee them. Some people have no problem with how this transpired: it's TiVo's hardware and they have every right to dictate what software you can run on it. Others felt it was violating the spirit (not the letter) of the license that the code was provided to TiVo under.

That's why they've created a new license, with specific provisions to ensure that if, as an author, you don't want this to be able to happen to your software, you can specify that in the license. The new license is intended to correct flaws in the previous license, as perceived by certain people with specific goals in mind.

I don't think anyone is stopping you from taking out your soldering iron and having at it.

As mentioned above, I don't actually care; but from what I've read about the DMCA and related laws, wouldn't it be illegal to modify (or remove) hardware that was designed as a DRM/copyright enforcement mechanism? The TiVo hardware might not fall into this particular category, but it's not inconceivable that the protection mechanisms of future devices would. (In fact, it seems inconceivable that such mechanisms wouldn't fall under the protection granted by the DMCA.)

Further, this raises an interesting point: if it's perfectly okay to be able to hack their hardware, why is it not okay to hack their software? Where do you draw the line between the two? If the device has the ability to receive software updates, but has hardware designed to prevent you from installing software that isn't signed by the manufacturer, do you have the right to remove that hardware? Do you have the right to run whatever software you want on it after removing the hardware that's designed to prevent you from doing just that? If so, why are they allowed to put hardware in there to stop you from using your right to run your own software?