From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (smtp1.linux-foundation.org [172.17.192.35]) by mail.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 7B6E525A for ; Sat, 27 Aug 2016 16:26:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from out4-smtp.messagingengine.com (out4-smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.28]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 918AE125 for ; Sat, 27 Aug 2016 16:26:46 +0000 (UTC) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 18:26:55 +0200 From: Greg KH To: "Bradley M. Kuhn" Message-ID: <20160827162655.GB27132@kroah.com> References: <20160826193331.GA29084@jra3> <87inunxf14.fsf@ebb.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <87inunxf14.fsf@ebb.org> Cc: Linus Torvalds , ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] GPL defense issues List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 04:54:15PM -0700, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote: > > Because right now, I'm getting some _very_ mixed messages. > > ... a wise man once said, "talk is cheap; show me the code". So, judge me by > my actual actions, not by twisting my words. It's easy to do because all > this work has been done transparently. As a public charity, you can look at > Conservancy's 990s and see all financial details related to GPL enforcement. > As I said in another post, in more than ten years, Conservancy has been > involved in exactly *two* lawsuits, with plenty of public documentation of > what happened there. Recently, I and Karen were the *only* ones who were > willing to publicly criticized Patrick McHardy for being unnecessarily > litigious and non-transparent [1]. Overall, we only began the GPL Compliance > program for Linux developers because developers *asked* for it. We remain > accountable to them. We published the Principles of Community-Oriented GPL > Enforcement, which were endorsed and/or lauded by many Linux developers, > including the entire Netfilter team, as well as other charitable > organizations including FSF, FSF Europe and the Open Source Initiative. > > > I *think* you are saying that I'm doing something wrong and hurting Linux. > I'm not only willing to hear you on that -- in fact, I am alarmed and want to > understand immediately what it is. As I said earlier, you are somehow saying that if we don't "defend" the GPL in courts, we need to give up on it. And that's just flat out not true, as I said before. Your LCA talk this past year, which is online, you say many things about how the BusyBox lawsuits worked out (caused the creation of Toybox), how LLVM came about (supported because companies didn't want to deal with the FSF and GPLv3), and how that the only thing left to "fight over" is Linux. I don't want to fight. For when you start fighting like this, you have lost, as I, and Linus now, keep pointing out. Again, when the lawyers get involved, you have lost. I know you feel that you have to get lawyers involved to "win" the last bit of a fight, but really, that's pointless, because you just lost. Someone in a reddit thread about this email conversation said, in trying to quote Linus, something along the lines of "the nuclear option should have been done to Allwinner a long time ago". And that proved my point exactly. Allwinner was a pain for a very long time. But as developers, and through the efforts of a lot of people at the Linux Foundation and Linaro, Allwinner is now a contributor to the kernel, and actively sponsors developers to write GPLv2 code for their chips. So, if, after talks like yours (between a representative of a kernel copyright holder and the company) breaks down, you would be forced to take legal action. And then we lost, even if you would have "won" the suit. Seriously, this is NOT how to to things. Over the years yes, my position has changed from being pissed when I see devices ship without code for their changes, to realizing that I actually can do much more than any lawyer can. I can take those developers and make them part of our own project, ensuring we can survive. Also, in your LCA talk you say about Linux kernel modules, and if I get this quote wrong, please let me know, "And we’re going to have to actually adjudicate that, we don’t have a choice now. I used to shy away from this because it’s considered so controversial but we won’t have copyleft if we don’t have this confrontation." And that's a very dangerous thing to say, or do. Because again, if you want to adjudicate this, that means you are willing to loose. I told you this in the lobby of LinuxCon last year in Ireland around a table with many others present. You value the GPL over Linux, and I value Linux over the GPL. You are willing to risk Linux in order to try to validate the GPL in some manner. I an not willing to risk Linux for anything as foolish as that. And I told you that then in front of a small audience, and am willing to do so now in front of a much larger one. Both you and Karen keep saying "we have to know and defend this", but that's what burned Busybox to the ground, and is what is threatening the future of gcc as well. It's great that Samba has survived this type of enforcement effort, but as Jeremy has pointed out, he's done that primarily by working directly with the companies, not having legal people get involved. So thanks Jeremy for proving my point :) Let's please stick to what has gotten us this far, and not change to being rude and disrespectful to our users and developers by getting lawyers involved. That way we know will cause us to fail. I routinely say that the only thing that will cause Linux to fail is if we do something stupid to ourselves, it's not going to happen by something outside of us. I see this as one of those extremely stupid things that we could easily do to ourselves that would cause us to fail. Again, learn from history, suing people is not the way to survive. Working with the developers is the way. As companies like Intel (who used to be one of the worse offenders of the GPL out there before members of our community worked very hard to turn them around) and Allwinner and RockChip (getting more and more involved in our community) and even Microsoft (who now gets huge revenue from running Linux and is sponsoring kernel development because of this). Look at the existing vendors you see today as not as "offenders" but rather as "potential members of our community" and treat them that way. It is the way we will continue to survive and grow. To not do so, is to kill off our own future. Do you know who the next "Intel" will be as a huge corporate sponsor of Linux developers and intrinsic to our future? I sure don't, but I do know that by treating offenders with lawyers, you ensure that they never will be that type of supporter. It's just like we treat new developers, you never know who will start out with just one patch, realize it's a lot of fun, and continue on to becoming a core developer. I started that way, and so did everyone except Linus. You have to treat everyone with respect in order to ensure that you can grow and survive. So please stop this now, it's not helpful, but instead, hurtful, and harmful to our very survival. greg k-h