Software Freedom Law Center vs Theo de Raadt

An anonymous reader writes "In a recent public posting to the Linux Kernel mailing list the founder of the Software Freedom Law Center, Eben Moglen, lashed back at OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt without actually mentioning his name. 'What has happened is that people who do not have full possession of the facts and have no legal expertise — people whom from the very beginning we have been trying to help — have made irresponsible charges and threatened lawsuits, thus slowing down our efforts to help them.' Moglen pointed out that they have and continue to help all open source projects, including OpenBSD, but the process takes time. 'The required work has been made more arduous because some people have chosen not to cooperate in good faith. But we will complete the work as soon as we can, and we will follow the community's practice of complete publication, so everyone can see all the evidence.'"

Comments

Re:I don't understand BSD

[Vardamir]

That is understandable; small scale demos that go along with academic publications might be licensed under the BSD (I think I would still choose LGPL or GPL), but maintaining a huge codebase under the BSD makes less sense to me. When you have a codebase as large as OpenSSH or one of the BSD distributions, it should be evident that the project is worthy of standing on its own. That's great. But, the fact that people are getting angry (like Theo) when the code is taken up and modified betrays the fact that deep down, they want a different license. Maybe not the GPL, but something more restrictive.

If a project was jointly funded by corportations and universities, then perhaps, at first glance, BSD would be a good choice. But you will always run in to these relicensing issues. Everything is trending towards Free Software these days, or at the least, open source software that is restrictive in its relicensing nature. Use BSD if you know what you're doing, but please, consider things first. Same goes for the GPL, when often times LGPL (in my view, but not RMS's most likely, is a better choice).

Isn't this whole argument pointless/retarded?

[BitZtream]

As I understand the facts, please feel free to flame me where wrong:

1. The author relicensed the code, that in and of itself ends the argument. Its his code, he can do whatever the hell he wants with it. Old versions still have the old license applies to them and always will, so if you have a copy, use it however the old license permits
2. The BSD license doesn't have any restrictions on relicensing assuming credit is given to the original author(s)
3. Theo is a hot head, attention seeking flamer. He's a hell of a developer, no argument there, but its clear by the way he treats OpenBSD and friends that he's got some issues. This isn't uncommon with smart people, and certainly not new for him, why act suprised and let him get under everyones skins, due to the first two statements above, I'd say no one did anything wrong and we should all just ignore any of this crap and move on.

With those things in mind, WHY THE HELL IS THIS STILL BEING TALKED ABOUT, ESPECIALLY BY PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO PROMOTE THE OPENSOURCE WORLD?!

I don't care for the GPL, its not my idea of opensource. Is it wrong? Whos to say? I'm wrong more often than not. I get frustrated when I can't use GPL code because it won't work with my commerical projects or my BSD licensed open source projects. Do I flame the author? No. They didn't HAVE to even let me see it. Do I reimplement it? Sadly, most of the time I have to. Hopefully the author has atleast contributed to my code by allowing me to see some of his/her neat tricks or some of the mistakes they made in their implementation, or maybe just how I can do it better for mine. If after going over the code learning all I can about it, do I tell the author if I notice a bug? Assuming I can contact the author in some sane manner, yes (No, signing up for some retarded forum is not an acceptable contact method). I gained some knowledge, in exchange I'll try to give some back. I'd also like to think that most authors of GPL'd code would be willing to relicense small portions of their code for other projects if it would benifit the industry as a whole.

I don't expect them to be okay with someone ripping off a bunch of their code and claiming it as their own, then going off and making a fortune off it, thats not what they want, otherwise they would have used a BSD license :)

Everyone just needs to stop getting all excited when something like this happens. When some one type of OSS code is found in some other OSS licensed project we all need to stop, settle down, work out the details and move on like sensible adults. All these types of arguments do is scare companies who are considering F/OSS code but are afraid of the legal issues. We need to be good sports and work together or large organizations are never going to accept OSS as a viable alternative to commerical/closed source products. If its ever going to be 'the year of the linux desktop', its not going to go hand in hand with the 'the OSS license group is fighting that OSS license group over silly legal issues'.

Re:Isn't this whole argument pointless/retarded?

[petrus4]

Theo is a hot head, attention seeking flamer.

I'd have less of a problem with people continually rubbishing Theo if there wasn't so often continual, simultaneous worship of Stallman on the other hand as well.

I will trust someone who is openly vindictive and who is willing to take responsibility for their own statements a lot more quickly than I will someone like Stallman, whose every utterance is communicated through minions and third parties.

Theo honestly being as much of an asshole as he is is actually probably the single most valuable thing about him, in my mind. Better, far better an open asshole, who you know where you stand with, than someone like Stallman who on the surface continually seeks the moral high ground, while underneath generally having motives that are far less clear. If I have to choose between evil on the surface, and evil underneath, I'll take it on the surface where I can see it.

Re:Both sides have legitimate complaints

[petrus4]

I think that Mr Moglen and others are factually wrong as to the nature of the license. But IANAL.

Moglen and any of Stallman's other minions will argue that black is white if they think they need to convince people of that in order to further the goal of the GPL eventually being the only FOSS license in existence.

Facts don't matter. Logic doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the establishment of a monoculture centred around the FSF, that Stallman and those answerable to him are firmly in control of.

Re:Shades of grey do not a good argument make

[afabbro]

At the moment, I'm drawing over 1000 tiles for a CIV-2 type game, because the 'freeland' tiles are GPL, and having to put the amount of work in to duplicate it that I am doing, I completely understand why.

What a colossal waste of time.

For an open source project like this, spending dozens (hundreds?) of hours of time redrawing tiles just because the license is different (yet still open) is really pointless pedantry. Wow, you've really struck a blow for your BSD license preference by wasting a ton of your own time. Congratulations.

It is possible, you realize, to release code that has both BSD'd and GPL'd parts...?

(Then again, why anyone would release code under the BSD license mystifies me...yes, I do understand the BSD zealot's arguments and they still seem more fashion than reasoned analysis to me.)

Re:Chandon Seldon is a Censor

[itsybitsy]

By marking this as a troll you are a censor too!

You are also committing an ad hominem personal attack by asserting that this posting was a troll posting.

I most certainly am not a troll and I find it offensive that you'd think so.

If you don't like what I have to say then simply moderate it up and let people go at it and let me defend my statements, otherwise stop with the troll silliness.