I hope one day that a bunch of kernel contributors get together and contribute their copyright to the FSF. Then Linus will probably suggest that the code is torn out of the kernel, and hopefully everyone will shout him down.
You must have never noticed the large number of real estate agents and Amway salesmen that attend churches... I think that's an accurate portrayal of Linus, yes.
You obviously don't go to church. If you go to a church where the preacher consistently puts forward a version of the faith that you disagree with, you go to another church. You don't hang around because, hey, you can sell a lot of cookies at the bake sale.
In any case, so long as we're in agreement that Linus doesn't believe in freedom or defending it, and is only using the GPL because it helps his project gain momentum, there's no need to argue about the little differences of our opinions is there?
A pure "everything is open, information cannot be controlled" philosophy might be cool and all, but it turns out not to work in the real actual world. I agree. We're talking about the BSD license right? Cause that's the reason why RMS went with copyleft in the first place.
No, you wrote a new system because NIH affects open source projects as much as it affects closed development.
There was a choice of about two dozen distributed revision control systems around at the time that Linus decided to go with his mate's proprietary product, Bitkeeper, and there was about twice as many as that after that fiasco came to the head that everyone said it would but Linus was incapable of seeing. So instead of just pickup one of these many systems and improve it as necessary, he declared that he knew better and made the monstrosity that is git. Meanwhile, everyone else is using Darcs or Bazaar.
If you don't believe that proprietary software is immoral (and Linus doesn't) then you don't follow RMS. Why use his license? Especially when he's made it absolutely clear what his position is and that he does and will continue to use his license to promote that position.
Yeah, it's so funny. I know, I'll use this GPL license for my software, it looks like a good way to get people to contribute changes back to me! Free Software? What's that? Oh, yeah, that's cool, not really my cup of tea though, thanks guys. What? Yeah, I'm going to keep using your license. WTF?
hehehe.. no, he can't. The GPL is not free for non-verbatim redistribution. If he wants to make a NEW copyleft license, from scratch, he can do that, but he can't fork the GPL.
Linus has the problem in that he got involved with Free Software without actually "drinking the kool-aid" and now he doesn't like everyone expecting him to go along with the faith.
To Linus it's just a software license. To RMS and the rest of us who believe in Free Software, it's the legal embodiment of a philosophy. My only hope for the future is that people who don't care about the philosophy stick with GPLv2 and those that do, switch to GPLv3.
That's nothing. If I take his composition and play it on my MIDI synthesizer, and record the resulting work, I own the copyright for another 50 years + life (or whatever). Separate copyrights for recordings and composers was the stupidest thing they copyright office ever allowed.. other than letting software be treated as a "literary work" that is.
a bunch of people who think that the best way to spread computer knowledge for the betterment of mankind is to turn software into a free commodity Worst summary of Free Software philosophy, ever.
Well, just last month he claimed he understood the spirit of the GPL better than the people who wrote the damn thing:
You claim that I "misunderstood" the "spirit of the GPL".
Dammit, the GPL is a license. I understand it quite well. Probably better than most. The fact that the FSF then noticed that there were *other* things that they wanted to do, and that were *not* covered by the GPLv2, does *not* mean that they can claim that others "misunderstood" the license.
So tell me: who is the more confused one: the one who chose the license fifteen years ago, and realized what it means legally, and still stands behind it? I don't think so.
The whole idea that there is a philosophy behind the GPL and that is the spirit, not the words that are written down to satisfy the lawyers is just lost on the guy. He goes on to say:
The beauty of the GPLv2 is exactly that it's a "tit-for-tat" license, and you can use it without having to drink the kool-aid.
I've said that over and over again. It's the "spirit of the GPLv2". It's what has made it such a great license, that lots of people (and companies) can use, is very fundamentally that it's fair.
The fact that the FSF sees *another* spirit to it is absolutely not a reason to say that I'm "confused". Quite frankly, apparently I'm _less_ confused than they are, since I saw the GPLv2 for what it was, and they did not - and as a result they felt they needed to extend upon it, because the license didn't actually match what they thought it would do. And now I hope you are as totally lost as I am. The "spirit of the GPLv2", what the hell does that mean? Maybe I just have this concept of a "spirit" of a document wrong but to me, it means "what the guy who wrote this document was trying to say". RMS wrote the document. He defines the spirit. The FSF represent his message.. they get their mandate from him. So for Linus to say that he understands the spirit of the GPLv2 better than they do is just obnoxious.
As for the comment about drinking the kool-aid, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You wanna talk about confusing? How confusing is it for you to choose the GPL, a Free Software license, when you just don't believe in the Free Software philosophy? If you don't wanna drink the kool-aid, and yet you still wanna use their license, don't get confused when people who have drunk the kool-aid wonder why you don't care about the same things they care about. Choosing the GPL for your project should be a message that you *have* drunk the kool-aid.
Heh, no. But that's some nice selective quoting. Linus likes Free Software and the GPL, because it gets him lots of code for his project. He doesn't actually think proprietary software is evil though. That's what RMS believes. That's the body and spirit of the GPL. As such, I don't think Linus should be using the GPL. Nor should anyone else who thinks proprietary software is morally ok. This is why Linus went with "the GPL version 2 only with exceptions for syscalls" for his license. He doesn't subscribe to the faith, he just wants to benefit off the gospel.
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I hope one day that a bunch of kernel contributors get together and contribute their copyright to the FSF. Then Linus will probably suggest that the code is torn out of the kernel, and hopefully everyone will shout him down.
Yep, and let's not forget the dissin' of GNOME, as they dare believe that configurability is the enemy of simplicity.
Wow, that's a nice rosy memory you have.
BitKeeper was a catastrophe that everyone could see coming except Linus. Binary drivers is the other one.
The preamble makes it pretty damn clear what the intention of the license is. Linus is just a freedom hater.
He brought morality into his project when he chose the GPL for its license.
BitKeeper was a bad choice.
That is proven by history.
No argument is possible.
Thank you.
You obviously don't go to church. If you go to a church where the preacher consistently puts forward a version of the faith that you disagree with, you go to another church. You don't hang around because, hey, you can sell a lot of cookies at the bake sale.
In any case, so long as we're in agreement that Linus doesn't believe in freedom or defending it, and is only using the GPL because it helps his project gain momentum, there's no need to argue about the little differences of our opinions is there?
- I think Tivoization is *good*.
- Your license stops something *good*.
Ergo:
- Your license is *bad*. http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/17/303
A guy who thinks tivoization is good is not a friend of freedom. But we knew that already.
Belgians are also evil. They raised Dr Evil. I bet he owns a proprietary software company or two.
It's like Linus just woke up and discovered that RMS is a religious leader. We've all know this for years. Many of us are members of his religion.
No, you wrote a new system because NIH affects open source projects as much as it affects closed development.
There was a choice of about two dozen distributed revision control systems around at the time that Linus decided to go with his mate's proprietary product, Bitkeeper, and there was about twice as many as that after that fiasco came to the head that everyone said it would but Linus was incapable of seeing. So instead of just pickup one of these many systems and improve it as necessary, he declared that he knew better and made the monstrosity that is git. Meanwhile, everyone else is using Darcs or Bazaar.
One word: Bitkeeper.
If you don't believe that proprietary software is immoral (and Linus doesn't) then you don't follow RMS. Why use his license? Especially when he's made it absolutely clear what his position is and that he does and will continue to use his license to promote that position.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/20/223
Go the rant Linus.
Yeah, it's so funny. I know, I'll use this GPL license for my software, it looks like a good way to get people to contribute changes back to me! Free Software? What's that? Oh, yeah, that's cool, not really my cup of tea though, thanks guys. What? Yeah, I'm going to keep using your license. WTF?
hehehe.. no, he can't. The GPL is not free for non-verbatim redistribution. If he wants to make a NEW copyleft license, from scratch, he can do that, but he can't fork the GPL.
Linus has the problem in that he got involved with Free Software without actually "drinking the kool-aid" and now he doesn't like everyone expecting him to go along with the faith.
To Linus it's just a software license. To RMS and the rest of us who believe in Free Software, it's the legal embodiment of a philosophy. My only hope for the future is that people who don't care about the philosophy stick with GPLv2 and those that do, switch to GPLv3.
That's nothing. If I take his composition and play it on my MIDI synthesizer, and record the resulting work, I own the copyright for another 50 years + life (or whatever). Separate copyrights for recordings and composers was the stupidest thing they copyright office ever allowed.. other than letting software be treated as a "literary work" that is.
Well, just last month he claimed he understood the spirit of the GPL better than the people who wrote the damn thing:
You claim that I "misunderstood" the "spirit of the GPL".Dammit, the GPL is a license. I understand it quite well. Probably better than most. The fact that the FSF then noticed that there were *other* things that they wanted to do, and that were *not* covered by the GPLv2, does *not* mean that they can claim that others "misunderstood" the license.
So tell me: who is the more confused one: the one who chose the license fifteen years ago, and realized what it means legally, and still stands behind it? I don't think so.
The whole idea that there is a philosophy behind the GPL and that is the spirit, not the words that are written down to satisfy the lawyers is just lost on the guy. He goes on to say:
The beauty of the GPLv2 is exactly that it's a "tit-for-tat" license, and you can use it without having to drink the kool-aid.I've said that over and over again. It's the "spirit of the GPLv2". It's what has made it such a great license, that lots of people (and companies) can use, is very fundamentally that it's fair.
The fact that the FSF sees *another* spirit to it is absolutely not a reason to say that I'm "confused". Quite frankly, apparently I'm _less_ confused than they are, since I saw the GPLv2 for what it was, and they did not - and as a result they felt they needed to extend upon it, because the license didn't actually match what they thought it would do. And now I hope you are as totally lost as I am. The "spirit of the GPLv2", what the hell does that mean? Maybe I just have this concept of a "spirit" of a document wrong but to me, it means "what the guy who wrote this document was trying to say". RMS wrote the document. He defines the spirit. The FSF represent his message.. they get their mandate from him. So for Linus to say that he understands the spirit of the GPLv2 better than they do is just obnoxious.
As for the comment about drinking the kool-aid, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You wanna talk about confusing? How confusing is it for you to choose the GPL, a Free Software license, when you just don't believe in the Free Software philosophy? If you don't wanna drink the kool-aid, and yet you still wanna use their license, don't get confused when people who have drunk the kool-aid wonder why you don't care about the same things they care about. Choosing the GPL for your project should be a message that you *have* drunk the kool-aid.
Otherwise, take off the t-shirt already.
Heh, no. But that's some nice selective quoting. Linus likes Free Software and the GPL, because it gets him lots of code for his project. He doesn't actually think proprietary software is evil though. That's what RMS believes. That's the body and spirit of the GPL. As such, I don't think Linus should be using the GPL. Nor should anyone else who thinks proprietary software is morally ok. This is why Linus went with "the GPL version 2 only with exceptions for syscalls" for his license. He doesn't subscribe to the faith, he just wants to benefit off the gospel.
All these questions and more answered in the podcast linked to by the summary!
RTFA.
Exactly.