Linus on Linux, 20 Years In

Radium_ writes "Along with the 20th anniversary of the release of the first Linux kernel, Linuxfr — a French-language Linux website — published an interview with Linus Torvalds. [Interview in English.] The creator of Linux answers questions about Linux kernel licensing, his contributions to the kernel development model and Linux in 2031."

Comments

A really interesting quote from Linus

[frostmages]

A lot of other people think that the BSD license with its even more freedoms is a better license for them.

The creator of Linux thinks the BSD license is more free. Now we can stop the fighting. BSD license doesn't try to tell other people how they can use the code, GPL does. Who is more correct man to say it?

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[MrEricSir]

So what? I don't think *anyone* would argue that the BSD license contains more freedoms than the GPL.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[ivucica]

BSD license is more free, but does not preserve the freedoms.

Choice of license should depend on your goals. If one of them is philosophy, so be it. If one of them is business, so be it. I always pick the license that I feel best for a project.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[omar.sahal]

Are you some kind of troll
If BSD is good for you use it, most companies would probably want LGPL. Gives people the right to use the code, but also protects your interests. When Microsoft wanted to contribute to the Apache project they used this licence for this reason

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[lucian1900]

They both have restrictions. BSD is especially more restrictive than MIT. So much so that many people consider BSD to be weak copyleft.

Also, Linus is well known for not being a FSF nut. Sane people in both camps have always been nice about the other camp.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[jonescb]

"Trying to push any particular license as "the ethical choice" just makes me mad. Really."

You dun made Linus mad.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you really miss the "A lot of other people think that" before the part that you cited? Reading his whole answer, he doesn't even comment on which license is more free. He just says that the GPLv2 is the right license for him and his goals.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Um. I think Linus Torvalds would argue exactly that. Since he did. In the quoted line from the article.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the BSD license has more freedoms. In the same way you'd have more freedom if you were allowed to shoot people in the face without facing consequences. Some freedoms are best not given away to everyone.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[omar.sahal]

Besides I remember about a year ago (I think) Eric Raymond asking, do we need the GPL?. The debate around this was quite sane with many people looking rationally at all the licences, giving reasons for choosing one over another. Even the GNU people made fair points, in regards to protecting the labour of those who contributed to the code base. I think the community has moved on from irate arguments on freedom, this maybe because Stallman's (as important and influential as he is) view is balanced by others such as Torvalds.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[MrEricSir]

You know what I mean... argue against that statement.

Stupid English language!

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Please learn your language. The "even more freedoms" bit is included in what "a lot of other people" think. That is not necessarily what Linus thinks.
Linus is just stating other people's opinion, not his own.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[betterunixthanunix]

The creator of Linux thinks the BSD license is more free

So what? Linus did not write the GPL, and he did not even plan to release the original Linux kernel under a libre license.

Who is more correct man to say it?

Maybe RMS, or someone who actually works for the Free Software Foundation?

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Kjella]

Stupid English language!

And users say "stupid computer", it's easier to blame the tools than one who wields it.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[migla]

Sane people in both camps have always been nice about the other camp.

Yes. The description "bunch of masturbating monkeys" was meant in the nicest possible way. :)

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[aristotle-dude]

BSD license is more free, but does not preserve the freedoms.

Choice of license should depend on your goals. If one of them is philosophy, so be it. If one of them is business, so be it. I always pick the license that I feel best for a project.

It is more free but it does not preserve the freedoms? Who's freedoms? Stop it with the doublespeak/orwellian newspeak. Neither the BSD or GPL have anything to do with the end user. The end user does not give a rats arse about the source code, it's availability or what license it is under. The only people interested are third parties looking for an opportunity to contribute to the codebase and both licenses offer that freedom to those "developers". The BSD also offers the freedom to take that source, use it and incorporate it into a larger closed source product which implements the same standard as the original project.

if you want to push a particular ideology represented by the GNU foundation then you would choose the GPL but if you are interested in pushing forward an open standard that can be implemented and integrated by anyone then you would choose the BSD. Part of the reason why TCP/IP became the standard for the internet is because the stack was release under the BSD license which meant that closed source software vendors could implement the same stack on their platform quickly without fear of viral licenses or contamination.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Kjella]

And users say "stupid computer", it's easier to blame the tools than the one who wields it.

Somewhere, there's an irony in that post....

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

No, his quote won't stop the fighting. Because, really, the arguments about "which license is freer" are actually not about which one is freer. This is just another case where the debate is derailed because people are using a word (in this case "free") as a stand-in for another concept ("better"). To have a productive conversation we first need to recognize that there are different ways to define "free". (Are we talking freedom for user? Freedom for developer? Freedom for distributor? And are we talking about 'freedom' as in 'unrestricted', or as in 'guaranteed to remain open/available? Etc.) Then, rather than try to agree on a definition, it's actually more productive to move past it and talk about the concept that the word is being used to get at. The real debate is about which license is more ethical, or leads to better software, or which makes the world a better place, or whatever... Even once you focus-in on those questions, it's not at all obvious what the right answer is (and so the argument will continue), but at least you'll then be arguing about a specific question rather than arguing over a vague word.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Gilmoure]

English is the result of Norman soldiers attempting to pick up Anglo-Saxon barmaids, and is no more legitimate than any of the other results.
— H. Beam Piper

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[kwerle]

The creator of Linux thinks the BSD license is more free. Now we can stop the fighting. BSD license doesn't try to tell other people how they can use the code, GPL does. Who is more correct man to say it?

I think you just defined flamebait.

Nice.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Soulshift]

And users say "stupid computer", it's easier to blame the tool than the one who wields it.

Somewhere, there's an irony in that post....

Meta-irony for the win.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[DeadCatX2]

I hear this "does not preserve the freedoms" thing all the time from pro-GPL folks. It seems like they honestly believe that a commercial company can take existing GPL code, incorporate it into a product, and then magically the GPL code can no longer be used by open-source folks anymore.

Sure, any contribution that the commercial entity made to the GPL'd code base won't be shared back. But they wrote the code, not you, and it should be the developers' prerogative on whether they wish to share any code with anyone. You still have the original source code anyway.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[jedidiah]

Not at all.

Just watch a Mad Max movie.

The BSD is fine if you want some robber baron to exploit your work and lock you out of the end result. Otherwise, the GPL makes more sense. Despite of all of the noise from the BSD trolls, RMS did not create the GPL out of some deep seated need to overthrow capitalism. He created it because he started out with a more naieve approach to licensing and then had to deal with angry contributors when that first Robber Baron wannabe came along.

The GPL was created to keep CONTRIBUTORS happy. It was created so that the guys doing the actual work, the coders, would not get upset when the next Apple or Microsoft came along.

Guys like Linux have to deal with guys like Alan Cox.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[MrEricSir]

To be fair, computers are pretty stupid. If they were smart, I wouldn't have to spend all day programming the damn things.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the BSD license lives in a fantasy world, where nobody abuses anybody and everything is happy with the bees and the flowers...

In the real world, a company will take Linux, add a unique feature that the original version can't integrate, make it the dominant version used because of that feature, and close the source. (Remember the MS JVM?)
Result: Linux would be dead.

There's even a name for it: EEE: Embrace, extend and extinguish.
Microsoft's core strategy for everything they can't just buy but want to dominate. Used on a ton of companies, including Netscape, Borland, Sun, etc.

You can bet money that it would be the very first thing MS would think of, the instant Linux changes to the BSD license.

BSD is 100% free, no discussion about that. But it's too free for the real world. (Unless the perverse delusion about the the existence of "intellectual property" is extinguished.)

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[migla]

>It is more free but it does not preserve the freedoms? Who's freedoms? Stop it with the doublespeak/orwellian newspeak.

With bsd you can make the code proprietary and if you are mighty enough, maybe your closed version of things will be the thing everyone will be using in the end. With gpl you can't.

Which licence, would you say, intuitively, would lead to a world with more lines of code freely in the open in the end?

Some people seem to believe that not allowing software to be made un-free will preserve the freedom of it better. It's not as straightforward as the more freedoms of bsd up front, but I wouldn't say it's double- or newspeak.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Well PISS on Linus - no one cares what he thinks! Who does he think he is, anyway?

Oh - wait. You mean THAT Linus? The guy who wrote my kernel? Ooops. I take it back. I didn't mean anything, Linus. You really don't need to track me down and break my computer! I promise, I'll be nice from now on!

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[osu-neko]

I hear this "does not preserve the freedoms" thing all the time from pro-GPL folks. It seems like they honestly believe that a commercial company can take existing GPL code, incorporate it into a product, and then magically the GPL code can no longer be used by open-source folks anymore.

If this is what it seems like to you, it's clear that although you hear these people, you don't understand what they're saying.

Sure, any contribution that the commercial entity made to the GPL'd code base won't be shared back. But they wrote the code, not you, and it should be the developers' prerogative on whether they wish to share any code with anyone. You still have the original source code anyway.

That's precisely the point. It should be developers' prerogative. It's my prerogative to only share my code with people willing to share in return. The GPL enables that, and if you claim freedom is at all important, you should be glad that I'm free to make this choice, whereas other people may prefer a different choice (and use a BSD license as a consequence). Arguing that I should give up my freedom to share my code only with people I want so that others than share their code only with people they want (and I'm not one of them) is ridiculously hypocritical.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Metal-iron for the win indeed.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[ToasterMonkey]

I don't understand this.

BSD license is more free, but does not preserve the freedoms.

If somebody builds on your work and doesn't release it back to you, you don't lose anything. Effectively, there's no difference between that and if they had never even touched your stuff... which they wont do if they didn't want to have to share their changes with a GPL project anyway.

So you're only retaining contributors that are OK with sharing anyway and you're excluding people who do not want to give their modifications away openly and for $free. My idea of freedom is not "here is a free widget, but you can't improve and sell it, you can only give it away" - WTF?

This is strong-arming people into open source, just like the unnecessary association of $free with open. This isn't preservation, protection, nothing like that, it is attempting to SPREAD an ideal that has lately been starting to freak me out, and is counter intuitive to a healthy economy. There simply is no market demand for these ideals. GNU and FSF resort to this asshattery to attack a (once healthy) software market, forcing reimbursement for software development into areas that are unfeasible for small software businesses all for the sake of ideals that have zeeeeeeero demand in the marketplace. "Look at me, you can get a quick start on your project, for FREEE, there's just this uh, one string attached... you must support my agenda, mwahahahah! (evil Bowser laugh)"

Look, nobody uses Ubuntu because it has source code available. They use it because it's $free. I know everyone here knows this... "well duh, it has to be $free or nobody would use it and open source wouldn't advance"
Why doesn't creep out more people?

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[martin-boundary]

Neither the BSD or GPL have anything to do with the end user.

Really? Have you actually read the licences at all? They are clearly addressed to any user whatsoever, including the end user.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

As an american I am free, and the patriot act exists to protect my freedoms.

Wait, what?

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[icebraining]

if you want to push a particular ideology represented by the GNU foundation then you would choose the GPL but if you are interested in pushing forward an open standard that can be implemented and integrated by anyone then you would choose the BSD. Part of the reason why TCP/IP became the standard for the internet is because the stack was release under the BSD license which meant that closed source software vendors could implement the same stack on their platform quickly without fear of viral licenses or contamination.

Sure, and even RMS agrees with that. But those cases are few in the whole set of OSS software.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[DeadCatX2]

I agree that it's your choice to share the code with whoever you want. Just like it's a company's choice to share their source code or keep it closed.

My point is the idea that "the GPL protects freedom" is a load of BS. It's just another way to lock down code, it just "looks" free because they make the source available. GPL folks should at least admit that it has nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with controlling the source code.

Personally, I think you should be proud if any of your code is used by a commercial entity. It means your code is good. But I guess your moral grandstanding is more important than any sort of recognition.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you don't understand this. You're not even wrong.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[icebraining]

If somebody builds on your work and doesn't release it back to you, you don't lose anything.

That's not the purpose of the GPL: somebody may distribute derivatives following the license and even so never contributing back. The GPL is a legal version of the Pay It Forward concept.

So you're only retaining contributors that are OK with sharing anyway and you're excluding people who do not want to give their modifications away openly and for $free. My idea of freedom is not "here is a free widget, but you can't improve and sell it, you can only give it away" - WTF?

Nowhere in the GPL says you have to give your modifications for free; you just can't charge more than you already did for the binaries.

This is strong-arming people into open source, just like the unnecessary association of $free with open. This isn't preservation, protection, nothing like that, it is attempting to SPREAD an ideal that has lately been starting to freak me out, and is counter intuitive to a healthy economy. There simply is no market demand for these ideals. GNU and FSF resort to this asshattery to attack a (once healthy) software market, forcing reimbursement for software development into areas that are unfeasible for small software businesses all for the sake of ideals that have zeeeeeeero demand in the marketplace. "Look at me, you can get a quick start on your project, for FREEE, there's just this uh, one string attached... you must support my agenda, mwahahahah! (evil Bowser laugh)"

First, GPL licensed software is simply given with a price, like most others. Just because the price isn't monetary doesn't mean it's an 'attack' on the software market.

Secondly, the software market was healthy? That's just laughable. Yes, it was healthy for Microsoft and a couple of other companies who had everyone else by the balls with its monopolies and lock-in.
The IE6 monopoly was 'healthy'? Ha.

Thirdly, as said, GPL simply has a price. If a small company can't afford it, how is that any different from e.g. Oracle selling database licenses at $40k per CPU, which small companies can't afford either?

If there's anything that a market is good at, is deciding if something is too expensive. Apparently, the GPL isn't.

Look, nobody uses Ubuntu because it has source code available. They use it because it's $free. I know everyone here knows this... "well duh, it has to be $free or nobody would use it and open source wouldn't advance"

And, and nobody uses Red Hat, since it's not free. Oh, wait.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[John.P.Jones]

And public domain code is most free.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Microlith]

My point is the idea that "the GPL protects freedom" is a load of BS. It's just another way to lock down code, it just "looks" free because they make the source available.

Except that's a completely ignorant argument. The GPL protects the freedom of the source code and users who receive the code via a 3rd party. It's only BS to people who approach it with a fundamentally flawed understanding of what it's trying to achieve (or are resentful they can't jack the code.)

Personally, I think you should be proud if any of your code is used by a commercial entity. It means your code is good. But I guess your moral grandstanding is more important than any sort of recognition.

Well, if possibly unattributed, unpaid usage of your code is all you ask, many corporations will happily give that to you. Others have found that companies will happily use GPL'd code and contribute back. And many people think that maintaining an open base of software for computing is important, even moreso these days with extremely user-hostile platforms coming to the fore.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Kjella]

The BSD also offers the freedom to take that source, use it and incorporate it into a larger closed source product which implements the same standard as the original project.

Or arbitrarily change or extend it so there's no or flawed interoperability between the closed and open version. Or withhold bug fixes as a competitive advantage over the open version. The BSD license is great if everyone plays nice, but if someone wants to fuck you over you are all lubed up. If you really, really mean that you want nothing from them then choosing the BSD is fine, good for you. But if you start throwing hissy fits over asshattery when you specifically chose a license that allows it over one that doesn't, well you don't get much sympathy from me.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[exomondo]

I hear this "does not preserve the freedoms" thing all the time from pro-GPL folks. It seems like they honestly believe that a commercial company can take existing GPL code, incorporate it into a product, and then magically the GPL code can no longer be used by open-source folks anymore.

I think I understand the sort of thing you're referring to, that argument that BSD allows the 'freedom to take away freedom', which of course it doesn't, the original code does not become non-free. Yes it allows for non-free derived works, which means you provide 'freedom of choice' to the people who use your code.
GPL controls the code in such a way that it ensures that everyone who uses your code and anything derived for it gets the same rights and the same freedoms. So it's all just dependent on your world view, no license is 'better'.
To me Free Software means being altruistic and not forcing others to think my way, so i prefer the BSD license, of course others would disagree. The fact is permissive free, restrictive free and proprietary licenses can co-exist and that's really all that matters.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[DeadCatX2]

You keep saying that word - freedom - but it does not mean what you think it means.

The GPL is about asserting control over derivative works. It provides the illusion of freedom, but the source code is not actually free. If it was free, there wouldn't be any restrictions at all.

To say "the GPL protects the freedom of the source code" also implies that if a commercial entity made a derivative work, somehow the original source code is no longer free. That is complete bullshit. The only purpose the GPL has is to control derivative works.

If you want to use the GPL because it works for you, that's fine, go right ahead. But don't fool yourself into thinking that it has anything to do with freedom.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[blair1q]

The end user does not give a rats arse about the source code, it's availability or what license it is under.

The point of free software licenses is to ensure the end user has access to the source code. So that if the end user does give a rat's ass he can actually do something to examine and improve the code, if only for his own use and edification.

I.e., it's all about the end user.

It's when someone realized that there were users in the middle doing things to the code that they might not want to give to the end user, and that they had every right not to, that it all got weird.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

And public domain code is most free.

In some European countries it is not possible for an author / creator to give away all their 'rights' via the public domain. The SQLite folks have learnt the hard way that going public domain causes a whole bunch of headaches. It's actually easier to go with a 2-clause BSD/MIT license if you just want to give everything away with the least amount of hassle as to what's done with it afterwards:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Im sorry if i dont do my hobby for other to make money of. Whats so wrong about honest trading, you get to play with my code if i also get to play with your code.
I dont really se the fun in hey hare are the 200 man hours that i put in this project please take it and go home and dont play ball.

  "This is strong-arming people into open source" that is one way of looking at it another is i like to play with people who also likes to play with me.

each to his own if you love to work for free please do so, if you like to work for money that is ok to so why is it wrong to work for more code

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Kjella]

My idea of freedom is not "here is a free widget, but you can't improve and sell it, you can only give it away" - WTF?

Let me try making a car analogy. Pretend that in your town there's a car pool (open source collaboration) going. People give each other free rides (source code), some drive more, some drive less, some don't even have a car (they don't code) but people are happy with it and there's enough free seats it works out well. You too have gotten many free rides (source code) from this pool, but now you've finally bought yourself a car (started coding). However, unlike the rest you install a taxi meter and charge people to ride your car (sell your software). Do you honestly expect people to be happy about it? You've been given and given, and when you have the opportunity to give back it's all my car (my code), no freeloaders. Oh, you can make an small exception for driving the little old lady on your street down to the store (providing a small bugfix) to pretend you're giving back, but you're not fooling anyone. You want to bum free rides of others and get paid when driving yourself, it's egoism put in system. The GPL is more of a membership organization than a volunteer service. If you take free rides (code) from others, then you must also give free rides (code) when you're driving. Either you're in the pool or you're out of the pool. Yes, it evicts the taxi drivers but it makes the other members of the pool happier. They know the rides they give go to others who would provide free rides in return. It's about making it a win-win for everyone in the pool since that is what lasts and grows. Because when it comes down to it, others can argue up and down but it's the contributors who choose what license is a success and not.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer BSD because I trust good people willing to give away their code for free to write better code than selfish and hypocrital paranoids who can only live in the fear of M$(sic) stealing their precious command-line beer-brewing notebook tool, and actually make it into something profitable.
In the rare case where GPL apps become profitable, the source is closed by the copyright owners(SDL anyone?), showing more of their real hypocrisy, what with the free testing you got with your false promises?
Like they say, shut up and code.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[adolf]

Not to spark another GPL/BSD debate (though there hasn't been a good one here on these pages in some time), but:

I don't code anything worthwhile, but I do create some stuff. I generally do give it away for free, with "source" wherever applicable, under terms that let people/companies/penguins do whatever they want with it.

I don't care if anyone uses modifies it for their own gain. I don't feel that people should owe anyone/everyone the modifications that allowed them to earn that gain, at least from the stuff I make.

I don't consider them robber barons at all: I'm not deprived of my thing when they release it under more restrictive terms. Nothing was stolen from me, and I've lost nothing.

And frankly, if their modification or use of my stuff has enabled them to make money in ways that I could not conceive of, then that's my problem for not thinking of it first.

*shrug*

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Grishnakh]

but if you are interested in pushing forward an open standard that can be implemented and integrated by anyone then you would choose the BSD. Part of the reason why TCP/IP became the standard for the internet is because the stack was release under the BSD license

Exactly. This is the same reason that FreeBSD is now the most popular and predominant free operating system, powering a majority of internet servers, as well as devices ranging from mainframes to cellphones, and is increasingly popular in embedded applications of all kinds. Oh wait...

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Grishnakh]

Look, nobody uses Ubuntu because it has source code available. They use it because it's $free.

Yes, but many, many more people use FreeBSD and its siblings, partially because of the extra freedom of the BSD license, but mainly because so many contributors prefer the BSD license and its freedoms, and this has allowed the BSDs to progress and improve far, far more rapidly than Ubuntu or the other Linux distros. Because of this, Linux is on the verge of dying out completely.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Microlith]

You keep saying that word - freedom - but it does not mean what you think it means.

So freedom only means what YOU think it means?

The GPL is about asserting control over derivative works.

YES, that's what copyright is all about. And you must ACTIVELY AGREE TO IT.

It provides the illusion of freedom, but the source code is not actually free. If it was free, there wouldn't be any restrictions at all.

The source code is free. It cannot legally be reduced to a closed source binary, or serve as the essential underpinning of a closed source binary (unless it's LGPL.) The GPL is very deliberately ensuring that you can't pull the wool over the eyes of anyone you give the software to.

To say "the GPL protects the freedom of the source code" also implies that if a commercial entity made a derivative work, somehow the original source code is no longer free.

Which is bullshit, because a commercial entity can freely make derivative works. What they must agree to is that to use my software, that I have released under the GPL, they must give the people they distribute to the exact same freedoms I gave them. If they disagree, then they shouldn't use the GPL'd software.

Of course, people who are vehemently anti-GPL are usually only thinking of themselves, and never the people that come after.

If you want to use the GPL because it works for you, that's fine, go right ahead. But don't fool yourself into thinking that it has anything to do with freedom.

Because the greatest freedom is the ability to deny it to others. Got it.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a country which has more freedoms than where you live. There you can freely kill anyone you want, instead of being in an oppressive state which has rules and laws to forcefully cut your freedom to shoot at anyone.

Wanna go to to that country?

Well, I don't want. Linus said "a lot of other people...": that means probably he does not think BSD is better. Neither do I. I don't wanna go to BSD country; I might find M$ there and that would be unpleasant.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[NateTech]

The best software for the end-user wins under BSD. If it's the open-source version, great. If a company wants to put millions into an effort to make something better and wants to get paid for it, great too.

The best software for the developers wins under GPL. End-users be damned. "It'll do that when you learn to code, or I get around to it."

GPL means you're scared of competition and someone really doing something useful but expensive to write with your code that requires paid developers and a price tag.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[savuporo]

Look, nobody uses Ubuntu because it has source code available. They use it because it's $free.

Actually, i use it because it has source available. I dont disagree with most of your post, i publish my code under MIT or BSD. But i do use Ubuntu because it
a) mostly works
b) has debian package management, with sources included

which makes it a breeze to rebuild every package from the pristine sources in three simple shell commands. So i can ALWAYS, and i mean ALWAYS troubleshoot and get to the bottom of each and every problem. Even if im not able to solve it, i can at least understand what i am running into.

This is from a coder, of course.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[pedestrian crossing]

The only purpose the GPL has is to control derivative works.

No, the purpose of the GPL is to control the distribution of derivative works.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[bye]

Here's where your logic fails:

If somebody builds on your work and doesn't release it back to you, you don't lose anything.

Of course you (the project) loses something: you lose an opportunity for the project to go forward.

It's not a contradiction: you can increase freedom by removing the 'freedom to steal other people's work'.

A "quid pro quo" license like the GPL is a bit like a voluntary insurance fee: if you find the project useful enough to extend it, and if you find that extension so useful that you redistribute it, you need to contribute it back to the original project which you found so useful.

It's a bit like personal income taxes for immigrants: if you decide to migrate to and live in a country and reap the benefits of infrastructure and advanced civilization there (both socially and economically), then you are required to share back a small proportion of the profits you won from that deal.

So the GPL is optimistic altruism with a guarantee of reciprocity built in. This can increase freedom by taking away the freedom to steal.

If you do not like the conditions, you are not required to enter that deal.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[migla]

one string attached... you must support my agenda, mwahahahah! (evil Bowser laugh)"

Yes there is an agenda. That agenda is Freedom(tm). Not the kind of capitalistic freedom of "you get to buy up as much of the world as you can afford and then fuck it up in order to enrich you even more, or the BSD kind of freedom (which does indeed give you quantitatively more freedom out of the box), where you have the freedom to make the source code un-free, but freedom as in "this code should be free now and distributed code that builds upon it should be free in the future as well.

I have trouble thinking of a less evil evil agenda than that of Free software (however annoying and dogmatic zealots it often comes bundled with).

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me try a simple way of explaining things here.

BSD is anarchism: you and I share in our little commune, but we don't force others to, or tell them they're bad for it.

GPL is communism: everyone must share! If you don't share, you're evil! Some places still practice their vile proprietarian ways, but we all know that they are in their dying throes, and complete GPL domination is as inevitable as the world revolution.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[shutdown -p now]

The BSD is fine if you want some robber baron to exploit your work and lock you out of the end result.

What "work"? How do you "exploit" it? It's just bits. We all know that copying bits around is not wrong - after all, it's what TPB is all about, and we know they aren't wrong.

In all seriousness, if you feel the urge to correct anyone who calls copyright infringement "stealing", then you probably shouldn't call people who take BSD code and use it in closed-source programs "robber barons". It's about the same level of wrong.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[shutdown -p now]

Really? Have you actually read the licences at all? They are clearly addressed to any user whatsoever, including the end user.

They are only addressed to someone who would want to do something that is otherwise restricted by copyright (such as redistributing, or making a derived work). Mere use is not restricted by copyright, which is why neither GPL nor BSDL are of any relevance whatsoever to the end user.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[shutdown -p now]

Isn't that his point, though? GPL is not about freedom (as is often claimed); it's about sharing.

This is perfectly fine, since both are needed in real world in varying proportions, which is why different people use different licenses for different things. It was not an anti-GPL rant. It's a rant about the misuse of the word "freedom" for something which is quite different, even if also important.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

And, and nobody uses Red Hat, since it's not free. Oh, wait.

Correct. Most people use CentOS, because it *is* free.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god. I was going to reply to your post, but honestly, you argue as if you were 15...

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[vegiVamp]

"Strong-arming people into open source" ? You're exaggerating quite a bit, aren't you. Nobody is "strong-arming" anyone into open source.

I write some code. That code can be useful to you for basing one of your projects off of. It seems reasonable that I'm recompensed for my work if you use it, doesn't it? The classic recompense is monetary, of course. If I don't want anything at all for my work, I can license it under BSD. If I CHOOSE (no, I'm not being strong-armed) to license my code under GPL, that's saying "the recompense I want from you for using my work, is that you freely offer your enhancements back to the community in turn".

It is, for some people, an unusual form of recompense, but it is a valid one nonetheless. If you find that opening up the enhancements you plan to make is too much to pay for my work, then you simply do not "buy" it and write your own or find someone else who wants different recompense. Nobody is strong-arming you, either.

Also, nothing stops me from offering multiple licences on my code. I can offer it to the public under the GPL, and if RandomCompany comes to me and says "we could save three years of development by using your stuff but don't want our stuff public" then I'm free to license the exact same code to them under a different license, against a difference compensation of our mutual agreement.

The GPL also does not prevent anyone from *selling*, only from witholding the source code. You are right that there is not a major demand amongst end users for source code. You unfortunately fail to conclude that that means not many end users are willing to roll their own, so there is definitely a market for pre-built, easy-to-install software, regardless of the license it's under.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[IRWolfie-]

They are only addressed to someone who would want to do something that is otherwise restricted by copyright (such as redistributing, or making a derived work).

And the end user may be that person.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[JonJ]

Yes. The description "bunch of masturbating monkeys" was meant in the nicest possible way. :)

Well, Linus didn't say that because he thinks the *BSDs are bad operating systems, or that he thinks the BSD license is a bad license. He said it because he believes every bug to be as important as security holes, whereas the OpenBSD guys don't agree. They could've just as easily been the QNX guys or something like that.(Obviously, Linus prefers Linux to the various BSDs, but the competition is good)

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[WilCompute]

Somewhere, there's an iron in that post....

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[migla]

Isn't that his point, though? GPL is not about freedom (as is often claimed); it's about sharing.

Yes, the GPL is more restrictive than BSD. BSD gives you more freedom out of the box. Yet, the gpl should lead to more lines of code being out in the open, freely available for everyone, in the long run. I believe that is the plan and why it is claimed that it is about freedom.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Waccoon]

If somebody builds on your work and doesn't release it back to you, you don't lose anything.

You're talking to open-source fanatics, sir. Everyone knows reasonable examples like this only apply to piracy and jailbreaking.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[jareth-0205]

Well said... wish I had mod points.
There an unpleasant sense of entitlement from people who complain about the GPL restricting their freedoms... if you're going to use my code then you're going to abide by the licence that I choose, or find someone else's.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Essentially, BSD is a failure. It's license is to blame. When the free market had a choice, it chose the GPL. 'Nuf said.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Hognoxious]

In Soviet Russia, computers program YOU!!!!!!

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Coren22]

If you are redistributing, or creating a derivative work (then distributing it), you are not the end user, you are a distributer. The person who runs the software is the end user.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Sane people in both camps have always been nice about the other camp.

Yes. The description "bunch of masturbating monkeys" was meant in the nicest possible way. :)

This was not related to the BSD License, but to the security focused mind set of the OpenBSD People.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the TCP/IP stack was a good example of a product that benifited from being BSD licenced. There have been many others, and BSD is the right choice for many projects, *particularily* libraries. However, if the Linux kernel wasn't GPL, there would likely be 1000 different versions of it, sold by different companies, all with their own crappy modifications. Remember the unix wars? GPL helps avoid market fragmentation like that, because all useful changes can be and often are combined back into the same source tree.

Of course, there's a bagillion Linux distros, but they are almost all designed for slightly different uses. Furthermore, they often have similar software, and a similar technology stack.

TL;DR: Use BSD on libraries, but GPL can be the best choice for a project that is not a library (Linux, blender...)

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[WNight]

The best software for the end-user wins under BSD. If it's the open-source version, great. If a company wants to put millions into an effort to make something better and wants to get paid for it, great too.

Ridiculous. The market often backs the worst software for the user, in terms of stability, capability, lock-down, and sometimes UI. Media tools are one example, office applications another. With open source available at least users own the IP they use and can maintain it like any asset, even in the absence of the original author.

The best software for the developers wins under GPL. End-users be damned. "It'll do that when you learn to code, or I get around to it."

Are you allergic to thinking? Do you believe companies exist to freely give users features? You get those in the upgrade, for which you pay, if the feature doesn't hurt any of the company's other revenue streams.

With open source you have the choice to pay for upgrades by commissioning them. The end-user has a choice to take direct control over their tools, even if they have to hire someone to do it. But that's comfortable for most people and companies. You can install your own storm windows but few people do it.

GPL means you're scared of competition and someone really doing something useful but expensive to write with your code that requires paid developers and a price tag.

Hah. The GPL means you're not only okay with competition but are willing to give them a leg up by looking at/using your code.

But there's no reason to give these companies something for free. If the code is useful enough to base a closed-source commercial product off of then it's useful enough for them to pay for. With the GPL you simply take payment in kind, getting their changes back and having software you can interoperate with.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the most stupid thing I've read today.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, nobody uses Ubuntu because it has source code available. They use it because it's $free. I know everyone here knows this...

By saying that, you imply that every Ubuntu user would use it even if it wasn't free (as in freedom), but only "$free". I contradict your statement: I'm an Ubuntu user, but were it a closed system like Windows or Mac, I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole – not even if they offered me a not-significant sum of money for using it.

Ubuntu hasn't got a single major advantage over many similar OS's, so openness is most definitely a reason which many consider when they choose an OS. You obviously don't seem to understand; consequently what I don't understand is why you got modded +5 or insightful.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[drinkypoo]

A lot of other people think that the BSD license with its even more freedoms is a better license for them.

The creator of Linux thinks the BSD license is more free. Now we can stop the fighting.

That was two dumb things to say. First, he said the BSD license has more freedoms; he didn't say it leads to more freedom. The two are different and while he may not think so the quote doesn't show that. Second, since Linux invented neither BSD nor GPL his opinion is no more than interesting.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Darfeld]

Not really since the "robber barons" consider it robbery when it happen to them.

They think taking bits you don't own is thief and they do it to others? I certainly think they deserve to be considered as thieves.

Then again, there is the intent of the owner of the code.
BSD : He want to give it away? Well ok, you can't steal what is given.
GPL : They want to share as long as you share alike? If you don't play by the rules, don't whine if you get sued.
Closed sources inc : They don't want to share at all? Don't try. And if you do, get sued too.

That is all. GPL isn't an Evil Viral Licence. Well it may be viral but hey, at least you choose to get it. It's important. The LGPL is here too so you can use LGPL libraries with whatever licence you choose to use for your own code. It seems fair to me. They want to see what you're doing with their code, you can consider it part of the price.
With that clear, I think the GPL is a good compromise between total liberty to take credit for someone else and the "Do your own code, punk!" philosophy. So if you ask me, I'll advocate the GPL rather than the BSD licence. And you'll certainly advocate the BSD one. Or you'll just flame me for being a communism, and demonstrate which one of us is a religious zealot.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[drinkypoo]

Look, nobody uses Ubuntu because it has source code available. They use it because it's $free

I like how you feel you're qualified to comment on things about which you are wrong. If source code to Ubuntu were not available, I would use something else. I have in fact taken advantage of the fact that the sources are available by updating and patching packages, and without this functionality, I would have been stuck on various issues.

Further, people ask me to answer their computer questions, and I do not hesitate to suggest Ubuntu, because I know it contains nothing which cannot be forked.

You are wrong, period, the end.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[MarkGriz]

I prefer this quote:

"Because ethics are to me something private. Whenever you use it as an argument for why somebody_else should do something, you're no longer being ethical, you're just being a sanctimonious dick-head."

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

that's saying "the recompense I want from you for using my work, is that you freely offer your enhancements back to the community in turn".

Only the LGPL.

All the other GPL licenses say "your project must be open sourced if you use any of my code" (even pre-compiled libraries).

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[tepples]

But one major point of free software is that end user and distributor need not be mutually exclusive. An end user can help his neighbor by also becoming a distributor.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[aristotle-dude]

But one major point of free software is that end user and distributor need not be mutually exclusive. An end user can help his neighbor by also becoming a distributor.

This is precisely the wrong headed thinking which makes so much GPL'ed software so damn hard to use and in some cases to setup and install. Stop confusing the end users with distributors or interested third parties wanting to look at the code or contribute to the code base. In 99.9% of the cases there is no overlap.

Regardless, whether the license applies or not, the average joe probably is not going to bother looking at the license and just assume that gratis mean freely distributable. You would have a hard time suing some average person for not distributing the source to their friend and if you did then you would end up looking like a first class asshole.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Murdoc]

This is the same debate as the old question of whether or not I am more free if there is no law saying that I can't kill you or not. Sure, if there is no such restriction of that freedom, it is more "free" for me, the first iteration, but I am taking away the freedom of others. This makes it less "free" in the bigger picture. Same thing with GPL/BSD: one gives more freedom initially by allowing you to take away the freedom of others. So I think that debating whether which is more "free" is philosophical at best, semantics at worst. The real, pragmatic question is which benefits society better? Well for that answer, look at the laws of most societies: they seem to agree that taking away some freedoms to protect others is generally a good idea. How much is of course a huge matter of debate, but without this we'd be down to some darwinian survival-of-the-ones-who-screw-others-over-the-most.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[aristotle-dude]

The BSD also offers the freedom to take that source, use it and incorporate it into a larger closed source product which implements the same standard as the original project.

Or arbitrarily change or extend it so there's no or flawed interoperability between the closed and open version.

Wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of a "standard"? What possible reasons would someone have to take working code and break it?

Or withhold bug fixes as a competitive advantage over the open version. The BSD license is great if everyone plays nice, but if someone wants to fuck you over you are all lubed up. If you really, really mean that you want nothing from them then choosing the BSD is fine, good for you. But if you start throwing hissy fits over asshattery when you specifically chose a license that allows it over one that doesn't, well you don't get much sympathy from me.

BSD is like a commune where everyone contributes to the codebase to improve the product for everyone and nobody is forced to contribute everything they make whereas GPL is like communism where you are forced to contribute to the project all changes that you make if you publish a binary. BSD relies on trust and the belief in the good will of other people whereas GPL is built on an inherent distrust of other people and attempts to thwart any possible competition by removing the ability for a competitor to have an advantage.

Most BSD project seem to be alive and well so your assumption that they collapse and die because people don't contribute back fixes appears to be false rhetoric.

Finally, I noticed that you seem to use a lot of curse words and other anti-social phrases. I suggest that you work on your attitude problem before it gets you in trouble.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[clintp]

I liked this thought tremendously. Slashdot needs a moderation category for this. "Troll", "Overatted", "Underrated", "Being a sanctimonious dick-head"

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[aristotle-dude]

The end user does not give a rats arse about the source code, it's availability or what license it is under.

The point of free software licenses is to ensure the end user has access to the source code. So that if the end user does give a rat's ass he can actually do something to examine and improve the code, if only for his own use and edification.

I.e., it's all about the end user.

It's when someone realized that there were users in the middle doing things to the code that they might not want to give to the end user, and that they had every right not to, that it all got weird.

That might be the point of the end user but not the BSD. It can actually be a disservice to the end user if you include the source code in the same package as the binary because that means that they are downloading something that they do not actually need or want. You are confusing end users with interested third parties who can also be end users of the product. However, to assume that end users have any interest in examining code let alone assuming that they have the capability to improve the code just show how out of touch supporters of GPL are. End users are typically not developers and to assume that they are means that you really don't give a rat's arse about serving the average end user. Get this through your head already. USERS!=Programmers. Programmers can also "USE" the software but they are different groups.

Your confusion over users versus contributors is symptomatic of why GPL software is often hard to use and poorly documented.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[shutdown -p now]

With that clear, I think the GPL is a good compromise between total liberty to take credit for someone else and the "Do your own code, punk!" philosophy. So if you ask me, I'll advocate the GPL rather than the BSD licence. And you'll certainly advocate the BSD one.

I don't advocate specific licenses - I'm fully in agreement with Linus that you should use whatever makes most sense for you for a particular product. Personally, I've posted code under GPL, LGPL and BSDL (sometimes even in the same project - in one case GUI was GPL, but backend library was LGPL).

I just don't like the watter muddied by claims that GPL is the only license worth consideration for some innate moral reasons, or that it is somehow more free than others. It's not. It enables more sharing, which is beneficial in many circumstances, but sharing and freedom are distinct concepts.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[blair1q]

You're assuming that someone delivering code is forced to deliver source with binary.

No license demands such a thing. Those using free-licensed code merely need to make available the sources that built the binaries.

Free-licensed software is hard to use and poorly documented because much of it is written in the first place by people who have a lot of time on their hands, i.e., the unemployable. They follow old bad practices in interface design (300 command-line options with sub-languages built into the hierarchy, anyone?) and don't do doco because it doesn't give them that instant feedback when you change it, compile it, run it, and see it's performing to your bidding.

That's all to do with the unpaid nature of it, and little to do with the licensing model, albeit without the licensing model the code produced that way would be unprotected and therefore scary to release, so that much less of that behavior would be enabled or encouraged.

Your beef is with the personality of the community, not with their laws.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[sjames]

GPL is an attempt to patch a nasty bug in totally free licenses like BSD. A pure gift economy works very well as long as nobody decides to cheat by never giving. GPL just says that giving is a condition for being a member of the community.

GPL does protect freedom by giving an incentive to share and share alike rather than just take.

I might well be proud of my code if it gets used commercially. If the company wants me to be a nice guy and share, great! All they have to do is the same thing. If they want to just take and tell me to talk to the hand, they can forget it, I'm not a floor mat. If they really like my code but they really don't think they can afford to share alike, I'm willing to hear their reasonable counter offer.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[sjames]

I've used Ubuntu because the source is available. Otherwise I wouldn't have allowed it on my server.

There simply is no market demand for these ideals.

Then what's the problem? GPL software will just quietly disappear like any product or service that isn't in demand. I will argue though that it's very much in demand, it took over most of the Unix/server market already so there must be some demand.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[evilviper]

This is the same reason that FreeBSD is now the most popular and predominant free operating system, powering a majority of internet servers, as well as devices ranging from mainframes to cellphones, and is increasingly popular in embedded applications of all kinds. Oh wait...

Actually... Considering that Apple wholesale integrated large parts of FreeBSD into OS X, then iOS, which is powering obscene numbers of iPhone's and iPads, it's actually doing pretty damn well. Or something like JunOS in Juniper hardware that is blatantly purely FreeBSD. In fact you'd have a hard time finding a Unix-like OS that hasn't taken large amounts of code from the BSD code base, Linux included. Hell, whenever FreeBSD gets some driver first, it gets ported to Linux quickly. I don't hear any GPL'ers complaining that it's an icky license so they don't want to touch the code, though they have been known to violate the copyright and claim it is their work, fully GPL'd.

So, yes, you can get popular if you strategically place yourself so that YOU can use the resources of your competition, but they can't use yours, and yet you can still claim you're the "free" option. Thanks GPL! I don't mean to sound bitter, because I'm not. I just get annoyed by idiots like this.

Frankly, if all open source was GPL'd, we'd have no open standards to speak of. It wasn't. FreSSH that caught on, it was OpenSSH. Even as crufty as NFS was looking years ago, none of the GPL'd network filesystems made ANY headway. Just list them all, and fine one that wasn't originally MITX/BSD licensed... Apache, OpenSSL, X11, FTPd, Sendmail, Bind, etc.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[WorBlux]

It does at least in the short term, the BSD license is basically the closest you can get to releasing into the public domain. The price of a license is simply providing a copy of the original copyright notice somewhere in the copy or derived work.

In the long term and in the collective it doesn't because there are people who don't care about your freedom that may abuse it. Just as in the tragedy of the commons. Without some sort of formal or informal process to preserve the common from abuse, there is a chance for that resource to be ruined (Think of embrace, extend and extinguish)

The GPL isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. It doesn't require you to accept it, and doesn't pretend that you can accept it merely by running the software. They don't claim it's a contract either like some companies with thier EULA's. In a nation without copyright laws the GPL would be of no affect whereas some EULA's might be. It only claims to apply as a copyright licences agreement when you do something which would be illegal where you live unless you had such a licence.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[WorBlux]

The GPL isn't communism. It doesn't say that everyone must share. It just says if certain acts are illegal if done without permission according the the laws that apply to you, then you may perform such acts in accordance to some previously stated conditions. The FSF claims no authority to stop or limit copying except to the extent already barred by existing copyright law, whatever that law is where you live. The current versions of the GPL (2.0 and later) do not require anyone to to share their code if you do not want to. If you are not in compliance it only requires you to stop distribution until you are compliant or work out a version that does not require it.

The FSF certainly encourages sharing and loudly proclaims it's virtue. They have never claimed that those who don't ought to be thrown in a gulag or even that they will use force to keep their code out of proprietary projects. Legally all the GPL does is to provide the same legal protection to people who want a community project to stay a community project as there is to keeping proprietary code proprietary.

Both create communal goods, the main difference is the price of access. There is almost no price for the BSD goods, where the price of GPL goods is to keep derivative goods communal. In this aspect of being exclusive it is less communal than the BSD.

Now going into fairly minor points Marx saw the end result of the dictatorship of the proletariat (socialism) to be a moral transformation in the nature of man, creating what would be a reformed man who would live in an anarchic state where labor would be joy, and none of the artificial scarcity caused by property leaving enough resourced to fulfil all needs.

Now I agree that BSD is anarchism, or as close as you can get to it and still be legally recognised. The GPL may be like certain approaches of communism, but it certainly isn't the Marxist or revolutionary approach. Their approach is to create their communities as best as they can within the current legal framework, and hope their examples inspire others to adopt their methods through persuasion of a moral (the saint ignacious bit of stallman and the like) or material (the quality and agility of the actual software) flavour.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[WorBlux]

There is even a GNU all-permissive licence as well for such cases.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[WorBlux]

By this logic, any written contract reflects distrust of the other party, or a law against murder reflects a general distrust of everyone not to kill anyone else. In reality this law is applied to everyone, not because you don't trust most people not to kill, but because you need a formal system to deal with those who go beyond the bound of trust. A failure to communicate and set up clear, understandable and specific conditions which you expect in return for your efforts is at best a guarantee that people will diverge from your expectations, and at worst an invitation for exploitation of every sort.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[ioshhdflwuegfh]

A lot of other people think that the BSD license with its even more freedoms is a better license for them.

The creator of Linux thinks the BSD license is more free. [...]

Unless he says that a lot of other people think so.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[wrencherd]

And users say "stupid computer", it's easier to blame the tool than the one who wields it.

Somewhere, there's an irony in that post....

Meta-irony for the win.

I met a irony for a drink once; now we have a paradox and love them both dearly.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

if we had to wait for ideals to be desired in the marketplace, no ideals would ever have any adoption.
whether the marketplace adopts or desires something is not a good judge of the rightness of that thing.

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone can integrate any standard under the GPL, and it is FUD to insinuate otherwise. You cannot actively use GPL source in a commercial product, however, unless you're willing to provide your modifications. That is the agreement by which the thousands of free and paid GPL contributors have allowed their work to be used by you without monetary cost. If YOU don't like it, feel free to go elsewhere. We won't.

End users do give a rats ass about code, especially when they are computer savvy (it is also disingenuous to assume all end users are computer illiterate).

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[vegiVamp]

I was simplifying, but if you really want to be nitpicking, the GPL licenses say "your project must also be available under the GPL if you use any of my code" - not simply "open sourced".

Re:A really interesting quote from Linus

[badkarmadayaccount]

What does debian package management have that rpm doesn't? No anecdotes, just features, please. Every decent distro include source repos. And AFAIK, Ubuntu has the habit to get in the way more than say, fedora. Not that I have anything against Ubuntu, I'm just puzzled by your choice.

Re:Hey, Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

But... it's only the Linux kernel, there's no GNU, there's not even a slash... o_o

Re:Hey, Linus

[roman_mir]

Hey, dumbass, Linux IS the software that Linus Torvalds started - the fucking KERNEL, you dumb ass.

Yerp!

[dakkon1024]

Wow, I had no idea he was a potty mouth.

Re:Yerp!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yerp"? What the hell is that? Did you burp, then typed in exactly what came out of your mouth?

Re:Yerp!

[supremebob]

Yeah... and did anyone else think that Richard Stallman might have been the target of this particular comment?

"Whenever you use it as an argument for why somebody_else should do something, you're no longer being ethical, you're just being a sanctimonious dick-head."

Wow... Burn! Linux Guru cat fight!! :)

Re:Yerp!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I had no idea he was a potty mouth.

'Potty-mouth'?

WTF?

Re:Yerp!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... and did anyone else think that Richard Stallman might have been the target of this particular comment?

Your mastery of stating the blindingly obvious shall surely never be surpassed by future generations. Bravo. *slow clap*

Re:Yerp!

[Anonymous Coward]

C|N>K

Netcraft confirms..

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is now Ubuntu

Re:Netcraft confirms..

[Thud457]

I thought Linux was Android these days
if you're going with largest % of the user base...

Re:Netcraft confirms..

[migla]

Nope. I've often seen a distinction made between Android and Linux. Turns out, all these years when people talked about Linux they often meant GNU/Linux. Technically, Android runs on Linux, of course, but the meaning of the word Linux is GNU/X/[whatever]/Linux and Android isn't it. Hence, for example:

-Do you run linux on your [device]?
-Nope, Android.

Re:Netcraft confirms..

[kvvbassboy]

What? There is Android in Linux?

Re:Netcraft confirms..

[Grishnakh]

More than that, Android has diverged significantly from Linux, and it's unsure whether the changes will be able to be merged back into the mainline. Calling Android "Linux" is a lot like calling X.org's X11 "XFree86", or calling OpenBSD "FreeBSD". It's a fork, and it's no longer the same as what it came from.

Is there a .og domain?

[badboy_tw2002]

Because if so the French linux site, linuxFr should really be based there.

Re:Is there a .og domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, but if there is then I'm sure there's a www.sex.og. I'd try going there first.

Big thank you to all the contributors

[bl8n8r]

To all the people who contributed Open Source projects over the last 20 years, a big THANKS. Can you imagine this landscape without open source software and alternatives to run it on like Linux and the *BSD variants?

Most of the internet would would need downtime for reboot every night, and the cost incurred by your ISP for all the proprietary licensing would probably put the net out of reach for most common folks.

Re:Big thank you to all the contributors

[Anonymous Coward]

So why the "20 years", particularly? What about all the free software pre-dating Linux?
It's not like Linux was the first, or even an especially early visible example.
I'm so glad we have Linux, but without it, what would HURD look like?

Re:Big thank you to all the contributors

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I'm so glad we have Linux, but without it, what would HURD look like?

Duke Nukem Forever?

Re:Big thank you to all the contributors

[Lunix Nutcase]

I'm so glad we have Linux, but without it, what would HURD look like?

The same that it does now? HURD was floundering for years before Linus ever started his kernel.

Re:Big thank you to all the contributors

[Kjella]

Most of the internet would would need downtime for reboot every night, and the cost incurred by your ISP for all the proprietary licensing would probably put the net out of reach for most common folks.

Oh please. It's not like there wouldn't be competition or demand-driven innovation without open source. Either Microsoft would have fixed their shit anyway, proprietary Unix would have gotten cheaper, IBM's OS/2 would have succeeded or maybe even Apple would have stepped in. One way or the other the BSOD hell we had in the 90s was a children's disease that we'd outgrow.

Re:Big thank you to all the contributors

[Grishnakh]

Totally wrong. IMO, it's impossible to say what things would be like today without open-source, but I'm sure they would be very ugly.

Without pressure from OSS, it's doubtful MS would have ever fixed their shit. Yeah, Win7 actually works fairly decently now, but how many years has it been? Would IE7+ be standards-compliant if it weren't for Firefox? Not a chance. The only way MS would have been put in their place is if someone else came along and outcompeted them.

Proprietary Unix was pretty much dead by 1995-2000, due to high prices and fragmentation. The companies who owned the various flavors were doing nothing more than milking them for all they were worth before discarding their dessicated corpses. Unix would be a memory now if it weren't for Linux/OSS.

OS/2 was already dead when Win95 (and later Win98) took over. They tried for a while to keep pushing it, but it went nowhere.

Around 1998, Be even tried to push their own OS, BeOS. I remember lots of fancy ads for that thing. It was a complete failure, despite its technical superiority. No applications meant no uptake.

Apple didn't experience a revival until OS X came out, but even then they haven't gained that much marketshare in the PC and laptop spaces, only in mobile devices (largely thanks to the iPod). Some of their success has come from leveraging open-source code (BSD for the userspace, Darwin for the kernel, and KHTML for Safari). Given Apple's historically high prices, I seriously doubt they would have gotten very far in a world with Windows but no OSS.

The only way anyone was able to partially unseat MS, and force them to support open standards instead of making proprietary versions of everything, was to outcompete them, and with their monopoly, the only way anyone could do that was to be free (as in beer) and open-source. I imagine that if OSS had never come along, we'd still be using MS OSes which would greatly resemble Win98 in reliability and WinXP in looks, and they'd be charging an arm and a leg for NT-derived OSes which would only be used for servers.

Re:Big thank you to all the contributors

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft started working on OS/3 (later renamed Windows NT) in 1988. Good thing they had the foresight to know that some Finnish student would release a kernel to usenet three years later.

Re:Big thank you to all the contributors

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't "oh please". Microsoft's shit would have been much shittier, and more expensive without free software.

I don't care if they may have *eventually* got around to making some improvements. I don't like paying thousands for MS shit as it stands *right now*, let alone if it was more expensive and more buggy.

Re:Big thank you to all the contributors

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine that if OSS had never come along, we'd still be using MS OSes which would greatly resemble Win98 in reliability and WinXP in looks, and they'd be charging an arm and a leg for NT-derived OSes which would only be used for servers.

You’re clearly living in your own delusional OSS centric world. Fuck off and take your revisionist bullshit with you.

Re:Big thank you to all the contributors

[drinkypoo]

One way or the other the BSOD hell we had in the 90s was a children's disease that we'd outgrow.

Yes, we grew up and now we have reboot hell because the system doesn't pause by default when it receives an error that causes ABEND. Unexplained reboots sure are a sign of maturity!

Re:Big thank you to all the contributors

[tyoup]

Most of the internet would would need downtime for reboot every night

Well, most people wouldn't care since most people sleep at night...

Re:Hey, Linus

[dow]

I thought he was joking actually... but no-one has moderated yet. Could somebody please moderate and tell us whether this is supposed to be a funny?

Ethics

[Hatta]

I don't understand his position on ethics. Ethics are a social construct. Things are unethical because they are likely to cause harm to other people. It makes no sense to have a code of ethics in a social vacuum, if you were the only person on earth nothing could possibly be unethical.

If unethical actions are harmful, then shouldn't we be making sure the people around us are behaving ethically? Wouldn't that decrease the net harm we suffer? If unethical actions aren't harmful, then what makes them unethical?

Re:Ethics

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Linus' specialty is in managing the kernel development process, not the finer points of English. Besides, I think everyday everyone gets confused with the finer lines between ethics, morals and character. if we didn't, we wouldn't be human.

Re:Ethics

[lennier]

if you were the only person on earth nothing could possibly be unethical.

The whales might beg to differ.

Re:Ethics

[Yvanhoe]

That. And I know that in French "ethical" has a slightly different meaning. It doesn't really mean "judgemental" but "good". It may be the same in Finnish. It would surely explain the reaction.

Re:Ethics

[lennier]

Linus' specialty is in managing the kernel development process, not the finer points of English. Besides, I think everyday everyone gets confused with the finer lines between ethics, morals and character. if we didn't, we wouldn't be human.

I don't know, "ethics" is a pretty unambiguous idea to me. It's not being evil, and being evil is most definitely not any kind of private thing.

It's about as far from "private" as it's possible to get. I really don't get where he's coming from at all.

Re:Ethics

[The Dawn Of Time]

It's not terribly surprising that your ethics are not ambiguous to you, but that doesn't make them applicable to anyone else.

Re:Ethics

[exomondo]

Things are unethical because they are likely to cause harm to other people.

Things are unethical because they are 'wrong' in terms of 'right and wrong' which are subjective and determined by an individual's point of view.

Re:Ethics

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Well. I thought he was talking about character, which is what you are when no one's looking.

He may have applied the same standard to ethics. Which makes sense. Ethical systems are only valid to yourself.

Re:Ethics

[atomic-penguin]

No, you're confusing ethics with moral. Morals are for the most part black and white, these are principles and values that remain consistent and universal across race, nationality, and religion. Something like "do no harm to others" is a moral principle.

Ethics, on the other hand, is an entirely different branch of moral philosophy. In a sense, you could say ethics are moral principles practically applied to situational circumstances, particular world views, or as you put it a particular social context. Ethics are where you find the shades of gray which people tend to see things differently, depending on the situation and context. For example, someone might subscribe to the ethical philosophy that you shouldn't do harm to others, but it may be ethically acceptable to harm in the context of curtailing some greater evil, or harm.

So why is it that Linus should have to subscribe to the Free Software Foundation's ethical standards? More specifically, why should he have to subscribe to the FSF's ethical objections with regard to tivo-ization and DRM clauses in the GPLv3?

Re:Ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be the same in Finnish.

His mother tongue is Swedish, and I think "ethical" has quite the same meaning in Swedish as in English. French could be different.

Re:Ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprisingly, he's right (in some sense). There is an old distinction between ethics (based on Greek "ethos") and moral. The former is what concerns your own live and well-being and the latter is essentially social. Habermas uses this distinction, but overall it's not very common any more.

Re:Ethics

[brokeninside]

GP didn't say "human", but "person". Whales can only beg to differ if they are moral persons.

Re:Ethics

[sjames]

Whales are people too. They're very well liked in Los Vegas.

A broken clock is right twice a day

[$RANDOMLUSER]

So I guess the eternal

Are Linux users lemmings collectively jumping off of the cliff of reliable, well-engineered commercial software? -- Matt Welsh

goes with this thread, then.

Re:A broken clock is right twice a day

[phoenixwade]

So I guess the eternal

Are Linux users lemmings collectively jumping off of the cliff of reliable, well-engineered commercial software? -- Matt Welsh

Considering that "lemmings jumping off a cliff" is a myth, your comment is insightful.

Re:A broken clock is right twice a day

[martin-boundary]

Eternal is the word. I think it's time they fix the damn slashdot fortune generator, it's been stuck on that quote for way too long.

Re:A broken clock is right twice a day

[Spyder]

I resist the implication that commercial software is, in general, well engineered. I'm not going to claim that the "many eyes" concept always, or even usually, lives up to it's billing; but in several high profile projects the FOSS system has resulted in some of the highest quality and most widely deployed applications and services in world. The market challenge that many projects have represented have motivated vendors to improve in way they claimed were impossible.

A very short list off the top of my head:

Apache
Mozilla
OpenSSH
Snort
the collective GNU utilities
Wireshark

I apologize for feeding the trolls.

Re:A broken clock is right twice a day

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, that little blurb again. Yes, its quite possibly true (or not). I tried to post a story to /. about the blurb going on unceasingly for weeks and weeks and that something is broken in TACO-land. Story never made it in, the blurb at the bottom is still BoRk3n, and ./ maintainers are oblivious, malicious, or incompetent (ok it might be more an issue of "meh, two guys are on holiday, and I'm not going to give up a golf game and a nite out with the wife/GF to fix that!"). Pick the excuse of your choice, and run with it.

Re:A broken clock is right twice a day

[blair1q]

At this point, it's about 80 major bugs down in the list.

Re:Hey, Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I can't say for sure whether this guy's serious or not, but I can say it shouldn't change the fact that it isn't funny. It's just insulting.

Thanks To Contributors Past and Future

[EXTomar]

I first started using Linux in 1994 in college. Like most college students with a ComSci class that involves coding homework, you are nominally provided university resources to create and compile code but like so many universities, those resources were very overloaded especially during peak and crunch times. I had a 368 which I used for playing games and writing papers but someone mentioned that they knew this thing called Linux that behaved a lot like the system we used except it wasn't so slow.

So thanks to those authors and contributors back then for making my homework go smoother and who knows how Linux will help years and decades into the future.

Re:Thanks To Contributors Past and Future

[Hooya]

I started in 1995 for exactly the same reason! I had a 486DX at the time - was all kinds of fun trying to get the modlines for X working..

Re:Thanks To Contributors Past and Future

[lewiscr]

I always wondered what kind of modeline would destroy my monitor...

Re:Thanks To Contributors Past and Future

[Anonymous Coward]

1994, 486DLC, four megabytes of RAM, 200 megabyte hard drive. I ended up buying a 286 for programming, and the BBS that I ran at the time. I never did get Linux to feed the tty through the modem once it answered.

Re:Thanks To Contributors Past and Future

[bejiitas_wrath]

I used Redhat 6.2 as an alternative to Windows `98 and I was astounded how much better it worked compared to the aforementioned Windows POS that was BSOD and virus prone. Then I moved on to Mandrake 9.2 and then Mandrake 10. The ATI drivers included with linux gave me slightly higher resolutions and color depths than the Windows drivers on my Dell Optiplex machine. Of course I use Ubuntu now, but when FreeBSD has proper support for the integrated graphics in the i3 CPU then I will be moving to that OS.

All I can say after that though is thank god for Linux.

2031? How about 2038?

[adenied]

I don't really care what Linux is doing in 2031. I'm more concerned about 2038. Or rather, what it's not doing toward the end of January. On a serious note, how is Year 2038 being dealt with?

Re:2031? How about 2038?

[klapaucjusz]

IOn a serious note, how is Year 2038 being dealt with?

64-bit arches are already not vulnerable, since time_t is 64 bits there.

If there are any 32-bit arches left in 2038, we'll deal with them in the same way we dealt with the 2GB limitation for file size: by defining new 64-bit datatypes (time64_t, struct timespec64, etc.) and a set of new system calls (time64, gettimeofday64, etc.), and allowing the C headers to transparently map the old names to the new system calls (as with -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64).

--jch

Re:2031? How about 2038?

[Anonymous Coward]

We learned from experience and will let others deal with it in 2037.

Re:2031? How about 2038?

[Anonymous Coward]

64 bits?

Re:2031? How about 2038?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't answer the question of what will happen to all those embedded devices still ticking out there, like in satellites, and deep space NASA probes that we can't really maintain pick up and retool.

That said, I only see pocket calculators being the largest "undead" group that still gets used very often after decades have of creation (see today's article about the HP12C with RPN from 30 years ago), and none of them actually keep track of time.

Re:2031? How about 2038?

[Confusador]

For the vast majority of applications, it's being dealt with by the move to 64 bit. There may be some specialty devices that remain 32 bit, and therefore require a workaround, but we won't have a good idea of what those are until, oh, about 2031.

Re:2031? How about 2038?

[shutdown -p now]

64-bit arches are already not vulnerable, since time_t is 64 bits there.

In memory, yes. What about all the filesystem data structures? Network protocols?

Re:2031? How about 2038?

[WaffleMonster]

I don't really care what Linux is doing in 2031. I'm more concerned about 2038. Or rather, what it's not doing toward the end of January. On a serious note, how is Year 2038 being dealt with?

Every time I look into this problem the answer always appears to be absolutely nothing. Just fixing the problem for 64-bit linux is not going to cut it.

Some are already starting to run into problems with needing to store future dates today.

Re:2031? How about 2038?

[Anonymous Coward]

If there are any 32-bit arches left in 2038, we'll deal with them in the same way we dealt with the 2GB limitation for file size: by defining new 64-bit datatypes

We have open tickets on this issue TODAY. There are reasons people need to store dates far into the future. Linux does not have anywhere near 2038 to get its act together on this issue.

Linus also talked about 20-years of Linux...

[sjvn]

in this interview

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/twenty-years-of-linux-according-to-linus-torvalds/8663

with yours truly.

Steven

Re:Linus also talked about 20-years of Linux...

[synthesizerpatel]

Not to toot your own horn of course, but..

toot toot.

Re:Linus also talked about 20-years of Linux...

[drinkypoo]

Why the hell was that on two pages? I'm done with zdnet.

Re:Quote of the Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Well he basically said he didn't agree with DRM but that it had nothing to do with Linux as long as the license is being respected. His comments through the whole article were trying to avoid his personal opinions on subjects and stick to the linux side of the argument. Linus has no business telling other what they should do with their hardware, and he knows that.

Go make your mythtv box and stop trolling.

Re:Hey, Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman, is that you?

Who the fuck is Matt Welsh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can somebody please tell me who the fuck Matt Welsh is, and why anything he says should appear at the bottom of Slashdot every single day?

Re:Quote of the Article

[exomondo]

How about I bought the f****** hardware so shouldn't I be the one to control it?

You aren't aware there's nothing stopping you from hacking your TiVo? TiVo aren't going to support you or provide you tools but it's your hardware and you can do what you want with it.

Trust the Fr.orgs

[Anonymous Coward]

that's all I got

Wow, 20 years!

[Vskye]

I've been using this that long? (or close) Congrats Linus, and to all the others that have made this a great OS.

Re:Hey, Linus

[shutdown -p now]

Stallman doesn't post on Slashdot - his highly efficient setup for web browsing does not support the new ajaxy comment system. ~

the whole quote from Linus

[doperative]

"So I think the GPLv2 is a great license, and I use it for my own personal reasons. I do think that's true of a lot of other people too, but I really want to point out that it's not that the license is somehow ethical per se. A lot of other people think that the BSD license with its even more freedoms is a better license for them . And others will prefer to use a license that leaves all the rights with the original copyright holder, and gives no rights to the sources at all to others. And for them, that is their answer. And it's fine. It's their choice"

Re:Hey, Linus

[serviscope_minor]

his highly efficient setup for web browsing does not support the new ajaxy comment system

Taking your comment to be rather more literal than was intended... I brows slashdot in Links, not firefox. It's much faster and due to the lack of javascript, slashdot presents me with the old style interface. Makes me chuckle about all the posters complaining about slashdot 2.0, 3.0-rc1 and so on.

Re:Ethics can be private and a social construct

[brokeninside]

What he's saying is that the choice to live by this system of morality (or that system of morality, or o system of morality) is fundamentally a private chioce in that no one has right to impose his or her system of morals upon anyone else.

This is not to say that such systems are fundamentally private in all senses of the term. They may very well have come into being through complicated sets of social relations. Moreover, they may consist entirely of rules (or obligations or rights) that only make sense in a social context. And the any ethical decision, regardless of being made privately, may very well have an effect on society.

(Note that I'm not necessarily agreeing with him. There are a number of good reasons to criticize this view. I'm just pointing out that it isn't an incoherent view. For a longer, more sophisticated, coverage of what I believe amounts to the same theory, check out Richard Posners The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory.)

Lucene Revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Want to build Applications with Solr/Lucene? Check out Lucene Revolution Workshops for developers. Andrzej Bialecki will discuss Implementing Click-through Relevance Ranking in Solr and LucidWorks Enterprise at Lucene Revolution 2011http://lucenerevolution.com/2011/sessions-day-2

SDL not free? What am I missing?

[tepples]

In the rare case where GPL apps become profitable, the source is closed by the copyright owners(SDL anyone?)

You could be talking about a different SDL than I am, but this SDL is under the LGPL. If you're referring to the fact that SDL is often linked to a proprietary video game (as the LGPL is designed to allow), I have yet to see a viable business model for Free video games that aren't MMO.

Re:SDL not free? What am I missing?

[WorBlux]

You can separate the source for the engine from the specific artwork of the game and have them under different licences. In fact it's fairly popular for companies to release their engines near the end of it's life-cycle to help attract developers and improve their image among the same community. Every once in a while you get a decent free game or two from this as well as several indie type games.

Re:SDL not free? What am I missing?

[tepples]

You can separate the source for the engine from the specific artwork of the game and have them under different licences.

But how would one separate the source for the engine from the source for a specific game's rules? Or would the rules necessarily have to be written in an interpreted scripting language? And how would one release a Free game in a genre that isn't designed for the PC?

Re:SDL not free? What am I missing?

[WorBlux]

It depends, Usually stuff like physics is in the engine, stuff like HP and damage are usually written in interpreted languages (because you can develop, tweak and balance them a lot faster.) The rules hard coded into the engine would have to be replaced with very generic ones or a section describing the abstraction layer used by the rest of the code to implement rules or you just release the rules as well. any engine worth mentioning is going to have a lot of layers of abstraction anyway so it can be used for a lot of different games. A free game for a console is harder, either you target some hardware designed to be open or beg the console manufacturer for a signing code and to waive the licensing fees.

Re:SDL not free? What am I missing?

[tepples]

either you target some hardware designed to be open

But does there exist hardware that is marketed as connecting to TVs, generally available in the United States, an designed to be open?

Compatibility

[tepples]

I don't consider them robber barons at all: I'm not deprived of my thing when they release it under more restrictive terms. Nothing was stolen from me, and I've lost nothing.

When a robber baron convinces other people to make their own products compatible only with the robber baron's products, not with yours, will you change your tune?

Re:Compatibility

[adolf]

No, because I made the thing for me, and I'll still be using it the way I feel like.

If someone else feels like using it in a different fashion, I frankly don't care.

Right by accident?

[tepples]

This is the same reason that FreeBSD is now the most popular and predominant free operating system, powering [...] devices ranging from mainframes to cellphones

The iPhone and iPad run a cousin of FreeBSD, and the iPad is still beating tablets that run Linux-based Android.

Ubuntu restricted

[tepples]

people ask me to answer their computer questions, and I do not hesitate to suggest Ubuntu, because I know it contains nothing which cannot be forked.

Other than the restricted drivers for things like video and network cards. Would you hesitate to suggest something like gNewSense?

Re:Ubuntu restricted

[drinkypoo]

I would, because I would want to check their hardware for compatibility.

Then again, I am unlikely to recommend that someone buy a computer with Windows, if only they ask me in a timely fashion. Which they won't. I can give them my advice on the next one, though. Since most people seem to go through whole computers for software problems this seems likely to be useful.

The drivers aren't produced by the distributors anyway.

Linus on Linux, 20 Years In

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm love linux. It's made my life easy to admin and very stable. [ http://www.any-rich.com ]