Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Richard Stallman]

A rather misguided person wrote this:

	  This is the Linux-kernel list. It deals with
	  Linux-kernel issues. It does not deal with
	  your continual attempt to claim some sort of
	  credit for the work of thousands.

He wants to give all the credit for the whole system to just one
person.  I'm asking people to give a group of thousands of people
credit *also*.  In which of these two alternatives does one person
claim credit for the work of thousands?  The "Linux" alternative does
that.  If he applied his own criterion even-handedly to these two
alternatives, he would call the system "GNU/Linux".  But he doesn't
apply it even-handedly; he has led himself to apply a double standard.

Why does an intelligent person do this?  He is clinging to the idea
that "Linux" is the right name for the system, and that requires
distorting something.  Just as some people insist the Earth is flat,
or that astrology makes valid predictions, others believe that the
whole system is Linux.  All of them have to find a way to deny or
ignore the facts in order to go on believing what they believe.

If you call the system "Linux", you are misinforming other people:
teaching them a false picture of the system's history.  Some of them
may become so attached to the false picture that it distorts their
thinking.  If you call it "GNU/Linux", this won't happen.

Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Mike Galbraith]

At 03:31 PM 1/3/2003 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
>A rather misguided person wrote this:
>
>           This is the Linux-kernel list. It deals with
>           Linux-kernel issues. It does not deal with
>           your continual attempt to claim some sort of
>           credit for the work of thousands.
>
>He wants to give all the credit for the whole system to just one
>person.  I'm asking people to give a group of thousands of people
>credit *also*.  In which of these two alternatives does one person
>claim credit for the work of thousands?  The "Linux" alternative does
>that.  If he applied his own criterion even-handedly to these two
>alternatives, he would call the system "GNU/Linux".  But he doesn't
>apply it even-handedly; he has led himself to apply a double standard.
>
>Why does an intelligent person do this?  He is clinging to the idea
>that "Linux" is the right name for the system, and that requires
>distorting something.  Just as some people insist the Earth is flat,
>or that astrology makes valid predictions, others believe that the
>whole system is Linux.  All of them have to find a way to deny or
>ignore the facts in order to go on believing what they believe.
>
>If you call the system "Linux", you are misinforming other people:
>teaching them a false picture of the system's history.  Some of them
>may become so attached to the false picture that it distorts their
>thinking.  If you call it "GNU/Linux", this won't happen.

With all due respect Sir, do not address such to me.  You know me not.

         -Mike

Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 03:31:07PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
> If you call the system "Linux", you are misinforming other people:
> teaching them a false picture of the system's history.  Some of them
> may become so attached to the false picture that it distorts their
> thinking.  If you call it "GNU/Linux", this won't happen.

The term Linux for the whole system might be inaccurate, but it's what
is used and as long as the owner of the name Linux (Linus) doesn't complain
that's fine.  Calling it GNU/Linux is 1984-style changing of history, though.

All so-called Linux distributions were created from lots of different
components.  Many, often important, components came from the GNU project,
other from BSD NET/2 other were written from scratch, etc..  But these
collection of packages had had exactly _zero_ connection to the FSF and
the GNU project except reusing some components from the GNU project.

And no, Linux distributions weren't the only people doing that.  Look at
the number of GNU components in say BSDI where they combined it with
propritary software.

I'd also like to add the the FSF didn't give a shit for Linux until it
got popular enough to ride on the bandwaggon.

Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Larry McVoy]

> I'd also like to add the the FSF didn't give a shit for Linux until it
> got popular enough to ride on the bandwaggon.

Amen, brother.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm 

RE: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Ranjeet Shetye]

Hi RMS,

Saw you here and thought I'd remind you. I got under your skin quite a
few years back cos I wrote this perl-based cscope which I released for
free - with a modified BSD licence stating that no one in pakistan or no
person of pakistani nationality could use it and that this licence could
not be modified to allow pakis to use it. You might ask why I did that ?
Well, I am an Indian and I thought I'd just needle some pakis cos they
are such nincompoops. Anyways, 9/11 proved me right that pakis (+
saudis) suck ass big time.

Getting back to open-licence software, if you hadn't been such a
nitpicking ideologue, the free s/w world would have had a cscope at
least 2 years earlier than it did. I gave you my version of a "free"
licence, and you didn't like it one bit! That was the OTHER reason I did
it. To prove a point to you, that EVEN in a Free software world, there
might be some other price to be paid.

A full-freedom software world might turn out to be a grey tasteless
odourless flavourless communist world. Even free s/w needs competition
to keep it on its toes, and money is the best damned motivation for
normal people! While everyone, including me, appreciates what you've
achieved in the past, your intransigence over your untenable extreme
views on software freedom is the primary reason why you are losing
ground everyday with your own supporters. Think about it.

Ranjeet Shetye

> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org 
> [mailto:linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of 
> Christoph Hellwig
> Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 1:28 PM
> To: Richard Stallman
> Cc: efault@gmx.de; Hell.Surfers@cwctv.net; 
> linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 03:31:07PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
> > If you call the system "Linux", you are misinforming other people: 
> > teaching them a false picture of the system's history.  
> Some of them 
> > may become so attached to the false picture that it distorts their 
> > thinking.  If you call it "GNU/Linux", this won't happen.
> 
> The term Linux for the whole system might be inaccurate, but 
> it's what is used and as long as the owner of the name Linux 
> (Linus) doesn't complain that's fine.  Calling it GNU/Linux 
> is 1984-style changing of history, though.
> 

[Way OT]Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Philip Dodd]

Ranjeet Shetye wrote:

> I thought I'd just needle some pakis cos they
> are such nincompoops. 


> your intransigence over your untenable extreme
> views 


Just a bit of editing that I couldn't resist, thought these two bits 
went together so well.

Ranjeet, meet my kill file; kill file, this is Ranjeet.  Before you go, 
it is humbling to live one's life thinking that for every person you 
think is an asshole, there are at least 2 that think you are.

More if you post it to an ML ;-)

RE: [Way OT]Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Ranjeet Shetye]

Cool. Since you think I am wrong and stubborn and intransigent about
pakis, I'd gladly pay a two way fare for your wife or daughter to
travel/stay alone in the pro-Taliban areas of northern pak. Amazing how
quickly an offer like that shuts up all the politically-correct folks.

The real point of my email was that almost everyone has a slightly
differing viewpoint of how the real world AND the software world should
be arranged. I think pakis suck and you don't. Fine.

RMS's intransigence is hurting the open source movement at a time when
his past leadership shows how much he can help. A little flexibility on
his part would be a tremendous boost.

Ranjeet Shetye

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Philip Dodd [mailto:smpcomputing@free.fr] 
> Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 2:15 PM
> To: Ranjeet Shetye
> Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: [Way OT]Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL 
> "differently"
> 
> 
> Ranjeet Shetye wrote:
> 
> > I thought I'd just needle some pakis cos they
> > are such nincompoops.
> 
> 
> > your intransigence over your untenable extreme
> > views 
> 
> 
> Just a bit of editing that I couldn't resist, thought these two bits 
> went together so well.
> 
> Ranjeet, meet my kill file; kill file, this is Ranjeet.  
> Before you go, 
> it is humbling to live one's life thinking that for every person you 
> think is an asshole, there are at least 2 that think you are.
> 
> More if you post it to an ML ;-)
> 

Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Måns Rullgård]

Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org> writes:

> Calling it GNU/Linux is 1984-style changing of history, though.

Yeah, the GNU project was started in 1984.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@users.sf.net

Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Lionel Bouton]

Ranjeet Shetye wrote:

>Hi RMS,
>
>Saw you here and thought I'd remind you. I got under your skin quite a
>few years back cos I wrote this perl-based cscope which I released for
>free - with a modified BSD licence stating that no one in pakistan or no
>person of pakistani nationality could use it and that this licence could
>not be modified to allow pakis to use it. You might ask why I did that ?
>Well, I am an Indian and I thought I'd just needle some pakis cos they
>are such nincompoops. Anyways, 9/11 proved me right that pakis (+
>saudis) suck ass big time.
>

Please reread your last sentence. An isolated event caused by the wills 
and actions of a limited group (terrorists, terrorist backers) amongst a 
larger group (pakistanese people as a whole including children that 
don't even know the meaning of the word terrorist) is definitely nowhere 
near a proof of something concerning the larger group.
Stating otherwise to promote segregation is pure racism.

>
>Getting back to open-licence software, if you hadn't been such a
>nitpicking ideologue, the free s/w world would have had a cscope at
>least 2 years earlier than it did. I gave you my version of a "free"
>licence, and you didn't like it one bit!
>

So do I if I understand the following correctly. You could call it 
narrow-sighted but I'm very reluctent to increase the market share (and 
by that overall influence) of software excluding people for no other 
reason that their nationality.
Segregating groups of people nearly always help sustain violence between 
people. Please verify this statement on past and current conflicts.

> That was the OTHER reason I did
>it. To prove a point to you, that EVEN in a Free software world, there
>might be some other price to be paid.
>  
>
>A full-freedom software world might turn out to be a grey tasteless
>odourless flavourless communist world.
>

As long as proprietary software is not made unlawful where's the problem ?
You may link full-freesoftware inclination with communism if proprietary 
software was forbiden (and competition between free software projects is 
proved to be flawed) but I've never seen Richard state something like 
this. If I missed something feel free to point me where to look.

Free software evolves in a different way than proprietary software. This 
is true that most innovative products come with proprietary licenses 
now. But I'm not sure this fact comes from the license differences.
Free software and proprietary software don't yet play on an even field. 
There are huge inertial effects slowing Free Software market penetration 
now. When the field will be even and some time will have passed we'll 
know what places the two kinds will have and if the proprietary one 
really lies in "innovative products" land.
Until then, enjoy the ride...

> Even free s/w needs competition
>to keep it on its toes, and money is the best damned motivation for
>normal people!
>

Depends on the amount of cash you have in the bank and your income. If 
your current situation suits you, more won't motivate you as much as 
something you desire and money can't buy (and there's a lot of this kind 
out there).
What motivates me the most now (that the cash comes in regularly) is the 
ability to learn and interact with various people. I've not yet had 
enough of both. Most people spend their whole life pursuing various 
ideals, relatively few want to be the richest person on Earth...

> While everyone, including me, appreciates what you've
>achieved in the past, your intransigence over your untenable extreme
>views on software freedom is the primary reason why you are losing
>ground everyday with your own supporters. Think about it.
>  
>

Richard is an idealist. He can be annoying when you have your own feet 
on the ground but setting your goals too high isn't a bad motivation for 
making yourself better (unless you become an extremist of course)...



To come back on the Nvidia subject :

Considering the top performance mainstream 3D market now (ATI vs 
Nvidia), seeing that:
- both ATI and Nvidia have efficient proprietary drivers for their 
latest products (ATI ones are young and may still have problems I've not 
heard of yet),
- at least ATI 8500 cards have an efficient OSS driver in the works 
indicating ATI didn't make hiding *all* specs their internal policy.

Nvidia won't be an option for me and for every people that rely on my 
advices unless they open their specs or the market reverts back to a 
Nvidia monopol.

For the record, SiS lost directly at least tens and maybe hundreds of 
chipset sells when I was forced to tell potential customers contacting 
me directly that racks full of 645DX based systems might have to use PIO 
modes for all IDE transfers until SiS moved to help on sis5513.c ...
Since then every other potential customer was directed to appropriate 
kernel versions or kindly provided patches for their exotic 
patched-kernel configurations (some don't even know how lucky they are 
that I love to study new stuff)...

Remember : the fittest survives...

LB.

Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Mark Rutherford]

Watch 'Revolution OS' for more rants.
I did. I saw a lot of rants.

I have been using LINUX or the LINUX KERNEL for a long time, probable since
1993ish
I like LINUX...
but this buisness of the 'system' being the utilities I find hard to swallow.

I appreciate the work of BOTH Linux Torvals AND Richard Stallman
without either of these people, we would not have what we have.
but can we just, get along at least?
there is more than enough room for glory here.



Richard Stallman wrote:

> A rather misguided person wrote this:
>
>           This is the Linux-kernel list. It deals with
>           Linux-kernel issues. It does not deal with
>           your continual attempt to claim some sort of
>           credit for the work of thousands.
>
> He wants to give all the credit for the whole system to just one
> person.  I'm asking people to give a group of thousands of people
> credit *also*.  In which of these two alternatives does one person
> claim credit for the work of thousands?  The "Linux" alternative does
> that.  If he applied his own criterion even-handedly to these two
> alternatives, he would call the system "GNU/Linux".  But he doesn't
> apply it even-handedly; he has led himself to apply a double standard.
>
> Why does an intelligent person do this?  He is clinging to the idea
> that "Linux" is the right name for the system, and that requires
> distorting something.  Just as some people insist the Earth is flat,
> or that astrology makes valid predictions, others believe that the
> whole system is Linux.  All of them have to find a way to deny or
> ignore the facts in order to go on believing what they believe.
>
> If you call the system "Linux", you are misinforming other people:
> teaching them a false picture of the system's history.  Some of them
> may become so attached to the false picture that it distorts their
> thinking.  If you call it "GNU/Linux", this won't happen.
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

--
Regards,
Mark Rutherford
mark@justirc.net


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Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Richard Stallman]

    The term Linux for the whole system might be inaccurate, but it's what
    is used and as long as the owner of the name Linux (Linus) doesn't complain
    that's fine.  Calling it GNU/Linux is 1984-style changing of history, though.

The name GNU/Linux reflects the system's real history; the name Linux
teaches a mistaken picture that many people believe is true.  Please
see http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html for the history.

Let's look deeper, at the criterion you've appealed to.  Essentially
you've said it's ok to give credit for A's work to B if B doesn't
object.  In effect, that avoids the whole issue of unfairness.

      But these
    collection of packages had had exactly _zero_ connection to the FSF and
    the GNU project except reusing some components from the GNU project.

"Some components" is an understatement--they were numerous.  But let's
look beyond that.  The reason that these components fit in with other
packages, such as X11, TeX, and BSD network utilities, is that we
designed them to fit together.  Our project was to build a complete
operating system, so when we developed components, we had that purpose
in mind.  GNU/Linux distributions, at the root, are the result of our
project to make a free operating system.

RE: [Way OT]Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Andre Hedrick]

On Sat, 4 Jan 2003 Hell.Surfers@cwctv.net wrote:

> The fact that you would rather call people names then go hunt for laden
> yourself, stop them being brainwashed, means you are the first person I
> have ever blocked. bye.

ME NEXT, ME NEXT !!!!!

See you have not overdosed yet, sigh ...


Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

RE: [Way OT]Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

[Hell.Surfers]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 330 bytes --]

The fact that you would rather call people names then go hunt for laden yourself, stop them being brainwashed, means you are the first person I have ever blocked. bye.

Dean McEwan, If the drugs don't work, [sarcasm] take more...[/sarcasm].

On 	Fri, 3 Jan 2003 14:31:01 -0800 	"Ranjeet Shetye" <ranjeet.shetye@zultys.com> wrote:

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 3224 bytes --]

From: "Ranjeet Shetye" <ranjeet.shetye@zultys.com>
To: <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: RE: [Way OT]Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"
Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 14:31:01 -0800
Message-ID: <005101c2b377$cbbb3900$0100a8c0@zultys.com>


Cool. Since you think I am wrong and stubborn and intransigent about
pakis, I'd gladly pay a two way fare for your wife or daughter to
travel/stay alone in the pro-Taliban areas of northern pak. Amazing how
quickly an offer like that shuts up all the politically-correct folks.

The real point of my email was that almost everyone has a slightly
differing viewpoint of how the real world AND the software world should
be arranged. I think pakis suck and you don't. Fine.

RMS's intransigence is hurting the open source movement at a time when
his past leadership shows how much he can help. A little flexibility on
his part would be a tremendous boost.

Ranjeet Shetye

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Philip Dodd [mailto:smpcomputing@free.fr] 
> Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 2:15 PM
> To: Ranjeet Shetye
> Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: [Way OT]Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL 
> "differently"
> 
> 
> Ranjeet Shetye wrote:
> 
> > I thought I'd just needle some pakis cos they
> > are such nincompoops.
> 
> 
> > your intransigence over your untenable extreme
> > views 
> 
> 
> Just a bit of editing that I couldn't resist, thought these two bits 
> went together so well.
> 
> Ranjeet, meet my kill file; kill file, this is Ranjeet.  
> Before you go, 
> it is humbling to live one's life thinking that for every person you 
> think is an asshole, there are at least 2 that think you are.
> 
> More if you post it to an ML ;-)
> 

-
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