* GPLv3 Position Statement @ 2006-09-22 16:15 James Bottomley 2006-09-22 16:16 ` James Bottomley ` (8 more replies) 0 siblings, 9 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: James Bottomley @ 2006-09-22 16:15 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel Although this white paper was discussed amongst the full group of kernel developers who participated in the informal poll, as you can expect from Linux Kernel Developers, there was a wide crossection of opinion. This document is really only for discussion, and represents only the views of the people listed as authors (not the full voting pool). James ---------- The Dangers and Problems with GPLv3 James E.J. Bottomley Mauro Carvalho Chehab Thomas Gleixner Christoph Hellwig Dave Jones Greg Kroah-Hartman Tony Luck Andrew Morton Trond Myklebust David Woodhouse 15 September 2006 Abstract This document is a position statement on the GNU General Public License version 3 (in its current Draft 2 form) and its surrounding process issued by some of the Maintainers of the Linux Kernel speaking purely in their role as kernel maintainers. In no regard should any opinion expressed herein be construed to represent the views of any entities employing or being associated with any of the authors. 1 Linux and GPLv2 Over the past decade, the Linux Operating System has shown itself to be far and away the most successful Open Source operating system in history. However, it certainly wasn't the first such open source operating system and neither is it currently the only such operating system. We believe that the pre-eminent success of Linux owes a great part to the dynamism and diversity of its community of contributors, and that one of the catalysts for creating and maintaining this community is the development contract as expressed by GPLv2. Since GPLv2 has served us so well for so long, and since it is the foundation of our developer contract which has helped propel Linux to the successes it enjoys today, we are extremely reluctant to contemplate tampering with that licence except as bug fixes to correct exposed problems or updates counter imminent dangers. So far, in the whole history of GPLv2, including notable successes both injunctively and at trial, we have not found any bugs significant enough to warrant such corrections. 2 Linux, the Kernel and the Open Source Universe Linux Distributions, as the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has often observed, don't only contain the kernel; they are composed of a distribution of disparate open source components of which the kernel is only a part (albeit a significant and indispensable part) which collectively make up a useful and usable system. Thus, Linux as installed by the end user, is critically dependent on entities, known as distributions, who collect all of the necessary components together and deliver them in a tested, stable form. The vast proliferation of Open Source Licences complicates the job of these distributions and forces them to spend time checking and assessing the ramifications of combining software packages distributed under different (and often mutually incompatible) licences--indeed, sometimes licensing consideration will be sufficient to exclude a potential package from a distribution altogether. In deference to the critical role of distributions, we regard reducing the Open Source licensing profusion as a primary objective. GPLv2 has played an important role in moving towards this objective by becoming the dominant Licence in the space today, making it possible to put together a Linux Distribution from entirely GPLv2 components and thus simplify the life of a distributor. Therefore, we believe that any update to GPLv2 must be so compelling as to cause all projects currently licensed under it to switch as expediently as possible and thus not fragment the currently unified GPLv2 licensed ecosystem. 3 Linux and Freedom Another of the planks of Linux's success rests squarely on the breadth and diversity of its community of contributors and users, without whom we wouldn't have the steady stream of innovation which drives our movement forward. However, an essential element of this is the fact that individuals with disparate (and sometimes even competing) objectives can still march together a considerable distance to their mutual benefit. This synergy of effort, while not compromising dissimilar aims, is one of the reasons Linux manages to harness the efforts of not only motivated developers but also corporate and commercial interests. This in turn is brought about by a peculiar freedom enshrined in the developer contract as represented by GPLv2, namely the freedom from binding the end use of the project. Without this freedom, it would be much more difficult to satisfy the objectives of the contributors, since those objectives often have expression in terms of the end use to which they wish to put the particular project. Therefore, in order to maintain the essential development synergy and consequent innovation stream it provides to Linux, we could not countenance any change to the GPL which would jeopardise this fundamental freedom. 4 Pivotal Role of the Free Software Foundation We have acknowledged before, projects controlled by the FSF (especially gcc, binutils and glibc) are essential components of every shipping Linux distribution. However, we also take note of the fact that the FSF operates very differently from Linux in that it requires assignment of copyright from each and every one of the thousands of contributors to its code base. These contributions have been given to the FSF not as a tribute to do with as it will but under a solemn trust, as stated in article 9 of GPLv2, only to licence the code under versions of the GPL that "... will be similar in spirit to the present version". We, like all the individual contributors to GNU projects, have taken that trust at face value and accorded the FSF a special role in the Open Source Universe because of it. It goes without saying that any updates to GPLv2 must be completely in accord with the execution of that trust. 5 GPLv3 and the Process to Date The current version (Discussion Draft 2) of GPLv3 on first reading fails the necessity test of section 1 on the grounds that there's no substantial and identified problem with GPLv2 that it is trying to solve. However, a deeper reading reveals several other problems with the current FSF draft: 5.1 DRM Clauses Also referred to as the "Tivoisation" clauses. While we find the use of DRM by media companies in their attempts to reach into user owned devices to control content deeply disturbing, our belief in the essential freedoms of section 3 forbids us from ever accepting any licence which contains end use restrictions. The existence of DRM abuse is no excuse for curtailing freedoms. Further, the FSF's attempts at drafting and re-drafting these provisions have shown them to be a nasty minefield which keeps ensnaring innocent and beneficial uses of encryption and DRM technologies so, on such demonstrated pragmatic ground, these clauses are likewise dangerous and difficult to get right and should have no place in a well drafted update to GPLv2. Finally, we recognise that defining what constitutes DRM abuse is essentially political in nature and as such, while we may argue forcefully for our political opinions, we may not suborn or coerce others to go along with them. Therefore, attempting to write these type of restrictions into GPLv3 and then relicense all FSF code under it is tantamount to co-opting the work of all prior contributions into the service of the FSF's political ends, and thus represents a fundamental violation of the trust outlined in section 4. 5.2 Additional Restrictions Clause As we stated in section 2 one of the serious issues in Open Source is too many licences. The additional restrictions section in the current draft makes GPLv3 a pick and choose soup of possible restrictions which is going to be a nightmare for our distributions to sort out legally and get right. Thus, it represents a significant and unacceptable retrograde step over GPLv2 and its no additional restrictions clause. Further, the additional restrictions create the possibility of fragmentation of the licensing universes among particular chosen restrictions, which then become difficult to combine and distribute (because of the need for keeping track of the separate restrictions). Thus, we think this potential for fragmentation will completely eliminate the needed compulsion to move quickly to a new licence as outlined in section 2 5.3 Patents Provisions As drafted, this currently looks like it would potentially jeopardise the entire patent portfolio of a company simply by the act of placing a GPLv3 licensed programme on their website. Since the Linux software ecosystem relies on these type of contributions from companies who have lawyers who will take the broadest possible interpretation when assessing liability, we find this clause unacceptable because of the chilling effect it will have on the necessary corporate input to our innovation stream. Further, some companies who also act as current distributors of Linux have significant patent portfolios; thus this clause represents another barrier to their distributing Linux and as such is unacceptable under section 2 because of the critical reliance our ecosystem has on these distributions. 6 Conclusions The three key objections noted in section 5 are individually and collectively sufficient reason for us to reject the current licence proposal. However, we also note that the current draft with each of the unacceptable provisions stripped out completely represents at best marginal value over the tested and proven GPLv2. Therefore, as far as we are concerned (and insofar as we control subsystems of the kernel) we cannot foresee any drafts of GPLv3 coming out of the current drafting process that would prove acceptable to us as a licence to move the current Linux Kernel to. Further, since the FSF is proposing to shift all of its projects to GPLv3 and apply pressure to every other GPL licensed project to move, we foresee the release of GPLv3 portends the Balkanisation of the entire Open Source Universe upon which we rely. This Balkanisation, which will be manifested by distributions being forced to fork various packages in order to get consistent licences, has the potential to inflict massive collateral damage upon our entire ecosystem and jeopardise the very utility and survival of Open Source. Since we can see nothing of sufficient value in the current drafts of the GPLv3 to justify this terrible cost, we can only assume the FSF is unaware of the current potential for disaster of the course on which is has embarked. Therefore, we implore the FSF to re-examine the consequences of its actions and to abandon the current GPLv3 process before it becomes too late. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 16:15 GPLv3 Position Statement James Bottomley @ 2006-09-22 16:16 ` James Bottomley 2006-09-22 17:49 ` The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? Adrian Bunk ` (7 subsequent siblings) 8 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: James Bottomley @ 2006-09-22 16:16 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 462 bytes --] On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 11:15 -0500, James Bottomley wrote: > Although this white paper was discussed amongst the full group of kernel > developers who participated in the informal poll, as you can expect from > Linux Kernel Developers, there was a wide crossection of opinion. This > document is really only for discussion, and represents only the views of > the people listed as authors (not the full voting pool). And the pretty printed pdf version. James [-- Attachment #2: kernel_gplv3_position.pdf --] [-- Type: application/pdf, Size: 62732 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-22 16:15 GPLv3 Position Statement James Bottomley 2006-09-22 16:16 ` James Bottomley @ 2006-09-22 17:49 ` Adrian Bunk 2006-09-22 18:00 ` Greg KH ` (2 more replies) [not found] ` <200609221359.39519.gene.heskett@verizon.net> ` (6 subsequent siblings) 8 siblings, 3 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Adrian Bunk @ 2006-09-22 17:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel On Fri, Sep 22, 2006 at 11:15:50AM -0500, James Bottomley wrote: > Although this white paper was discussed amongst the full group of kernel > developers who participated in the informal poll, as you can expect from > Linux Kernel Developers, there was a wide crossection of opinion. This > document is really only for discussion, and represents only the views of > the people listed as authors (not the full voting pool). > > James > > ---------- > > The Dangers and Problems with GPLv3 > > > James E.J. Bottomley Mauro Carvalho Chehab > Thomas Gleixner Christoph Hellwig Dave Jones > Greg Kroah-Hartman Tony Luck Andrew Morton > Trond Myklebust David Woodhouse >... > 6 Conclusions > >... Therefore, as far as we are > concerned (and insofar as we control subsystems of the kernel) we cannot > foresee any drafts of GPLv3 coming out of the current drafting process that > would prove acceptable to us as a licence to move the current Linux Kernel > to. >... Some people might wonder why kernel developers have any business discussing the GPLv3 in their positions as kernel developers and why 10 core kernel developers put their names on a document containing this statement. Isn't all this complete nonsense considering that the COPYING file in the kernel contains the following? <-- snip --> Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated. <-- snip --> Considering that the number of people that contributed to the Linux kernel during the last 15 years might be in the range 5.000-20.000, so asking all contributors to agree with a licence change from GPLv2 to GPLv3 (or any other license) and handling all the cases where contributors do not answer, are not reachable or disagree, and doing this in a way not creating legal issues in any jurisdiction is not a realistic option. So aren't all discussions about "acceptable to us as a licence to move the current Linux Kernel to" silly since this is anyway not an option? In the internal discussions there was one point that changes this pictures, and I would consider it highly immoral to keep it secret since it affects every single contributor to Linux. Thinking about probably changing the license of the kernel makes sense if you believe the following "nuclear option" is a real option: 1. It is a legally tenable and arguable position that the Linux kernel is a work of joint authorship whose legal citus is that of the USA. 2. On this basis, a single co-author can cause the kernel to be relicensed. 3. To be legally sound, such a co-author would have to be either a current major subsystem maintainer or a demonstrated contributor of a significant proportion of code of the kernel. cu Adrian -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-22 17:49 ` The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? Adrian Bunk @ 2006-09-22 18:00 ` Greg KH 2006-09-22 18:01 ` Manu Abraham 2006-09-22 20:04 ` David Schwartz 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Greg KH @ 2006-09-22 18:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Adrian Bunk; +Cc: linux-kernel On Fri, Sep 22, 2006 at 07:49:53PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > Isn't all this complete nonsense considering that the COPYING file in > the kernel contains the following? > > <-- snip --> In a way, it is, but no one else is standing up in the free software community becides Linus stating that they think the GPLv3 is bad. So we wanted to make our statement also known. > In the internal discussions there was one point that changes this > pictures, and I would consider it highly immoral to keep it secret since > it affects every single contributor to Linux. > > Thinking about probably changing the license of the kernel makes sense > if you believe the following "nuclear option" is a real option: > > 1. It is a legally tenable and arguable position that the Linux > kernel is a work of joint authorship whose legal citus is that > of the USA. > 2. On this basis, a single co-author can cause the kernel to be > relicensed. > 3. To be legally sound, such a co-author would have to be either a > current major subsystem maintainer or a demonstrated contributor > of a significant proportion of code of the kernel. Note that almost no lawyer that I have spoken to about this believes this is an option. However, one lawyer I have talked to does believe this, luckily, that lawyer does not have a client who is a co-author in the current Linux kernel :) Anyway, this is arguing a legal point on lkml that even the lawyers don't all agree apon. I don't think it will get very far here either. And don't let it detract from the main issue here, the GPLv3 as drafted has some major issues that a number of us publicly object to, and feel it will cause great harm if it becomes ratified as drafted. thanks, greg k-h ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-22 17:49 ` The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? Adrian Bunk 2006-09-22 18:00 ` Greg KH @ 2006-09-22 18:01 ` Manu Abraham 2006-09-22 20:04 ` David Schwartz 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Manu Abraham @ 2006-09-22 18:01 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Adrian Bunk; +Cc: linux-kernel Adrian Bunk wrote: > On Fri, Sep 22, 2006 at 11:15:50AM -0500, James Bottomley wrote: > >> Although this white paper was discussed amongst the full group of kernel >> developers who participated in the informal poll, as you can expect from >> Linux Kernel Developers, there was a wide crossection of opinion. This >> document is really only for discussion, and represents only the views of >> the people listed as authors (not the full voting pool). >> >> James >> >> ---------- >> >> The Dangers and Problems with GPLv3 >> >> >> James E.J. Bottomley Mauro Carvalho Chehab >> Thomas Gleixner Christoph Hellwig Dave Jones >> Greg Kroah-Hartman Tony Luck Andrew Morton >> Trond Myklebust David Woodhouse >> ... >> 6 Conclusions >> >> ... Therefore, as far as we are >> concerned (and insofar as we control subsystems of the kernel) we cannot >> foresee any drafts of GPLv3 coming out of the current drafting process that >> would prove acceptable to us as a licence to move the current Linux Kernel >> to. >> ... > > > Some people might wonder why kernel developers have any business > discussing the GPLv3 in their positions as kernel developers and why > 10 core kernel developers put their names on a document containing this > statement. > > > Isn't all this complete nonsense considering that the COPYING file in > the kernel contains the following? > > <-- snip --> > > Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel > is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not > v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated. > > <-- snip --> > > > Considering that the number of people that contributed to the Linux > kernel during the last 15 years might be in the range 5.000-20.000, so > asking all contributors to agree with a licence change from GPLv2 to > GPLv3 (or any other license) and handling all the cases where > contributors do not answer, are not reachable or disagree, and doing > this in a way not creating legal issues in any jurisdiction is not a > realistic option. > More than that the people who are classified as the top ten are just MAINTAINERS. a MAINTAINER collects patches from various people. So eventually a MAINTAINER is the top most contributor ? this might be valid in certain cases, but not be applicable in all cases. > > So aren't all discussions about "acceptable to us as a licence to move > the current Linux Kernel to" silly since this is anyway not an option? > > > In the internal discussions there was one point that changes this > pictures, and I would consider it highly immoral to keep it secret since > it affects every single contributor to Linux. > ACK. cent per cent Talking about openness and still closed ? > > Thinking about probably changing the license of the kernel makes sense > if you believe the following "nuclear option" is a real option: > > 1. It is a legally tenable and arguable position that the Linux > kernel is a work of joint authorship whose legal citus is that > of the USA. > 2. On this basis, a single co-author can cause the kernel to be > relicensed. > 3. To be legally sound, such a co-author would have to be either a > current major subsystem maintainer or a demonstrated contributor > of a significant proportion of code of the kernel. > > > cu > Adrian > Manu ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-22 17:49 ` The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? Adrian Bunk 2006-09-22 18:00 ` Greg KH 2006-09-22 18:01 ` Manu Abraham @ 2006-09-22 20:04 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-22 21:25 ` Linus Torvalds ` (2 more replies) 2 siblings, 3 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: David Schwartz @ 2006-09-22 20:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel > Isn't all this complete nonsense considering that the COPYING file in > the kernel contains the following? > > <-- snip --> > > Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel > is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not > v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated. > > <-- snip --> First of all, I want to congratulate the Linux kernel developers on getting it right. I never would have imagined a near-consensus could have emerged on an even stronger position than my own. Second, I should point out again that it is unfortunate that Linus did not retain for himself the exclusive right to modify the Linux kernel license. If some real problem ever does emerge in the GPLv2 as applies to Linux, it will be extremely difficult to resolve. This is probably going to be controversial, but Linus should seriously consider adding a clause that those who contribute to the kernel from now on consent to allow him to modify the license on their current contributions and all past contributions, amending the Linux kernel license as appropriate. This would at least begin to reduce this problem over the next few years, leaving fewer and fewer people with claim to less and less code who would have legal standing to object. I agree there is no pressing need now and the Linus is unlikely to want to or need to change the Linux kernel license any time soon, but there could be an issue of some kind in the next few years, and it would be nice to start on a solution. DS ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-22 20:04 ` David Schwartz @ 2006-09-22 21:25 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-22 21:44 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-23 8:10 ` Jan Engelhardt 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-22 21:25 UTC (permalink / raw) To: David Schwartz; +Cc: linux-kernel On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, David Schwartz wrote: > > This is probably going to be controversial, but Linus should seriously > consider adding a clause that those who contribute to the kernel from now on > consent to allow him to modify the license on their current contributions > and all past contributions, amending the Linux kernel license as > appropriate. This would at least begin to reduce this problem over the next > few years, leaving fewer and fewer people with claim to less and less code > who would have legal standing to object. It's the last thing I'd ever want to do, for all the same reasons the kernel doesn't have the "or later versions" language wrt licenses. I don't actually want people to need to trust anybody - and that very much includes me - implicitly. I think people can generally trust me, but they can trust me exactly because they know they don't _have_ to. The reason the poll and the whitepaper got started was that I've obviously not been all that happy with the GPLv3, and while I was pretty sure I was not alone in that opinion, I also realize that _everybody_ thinks that they are right, and that they are supported by all other right-thinking people. That's just how people work. We all think we're better than average. So while I personally thought it was pretty clear that the GPLv2 was the better license for the kernel, I didn't want to just depend on my own personal opinion, but I wanted to feel that I had actually made my best to ask people. Now, I could have done it all directly on the Linux-kernel mailing list, but let's face it, that would just have caused a long discussion and we'd not have really been any better off anyway. So instead, I did git log | grep -i signed-off-by: | cut -d: -f2- | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | less -S which anybody else can do on their copy of their git repository, and I just picked the first screenful of people (and Alan. And later we added three more people after somebody pointed out that some top people use multiple email addresses so my initial filtering hadn't counted for them properly). [ I also double-checked by just checking the same numbers for authorship. I'll very openly admit to thinking that the maintainership that goes with forwarding other peoples patches to me counts as almost as important as the authorship itself, which is why I started out with the signed-off-by count, but I also wanted to verify that the list of people makes sense either way. It did. ] In other words, maybe some people thought that the 29 names were somehow "selected" to get that particular answer. Nope. The only selection was just an arbitrary cut-off-point (and the fact that I think two people didn't actually vote). It wasn't meant to be really "definitive" - the poll was literally meant to get _some_ kind of view into how the top developers feel. I think the end result ended up being more definitive (just thanks to the very clear voting pattern) than we migth have expected. So, to anybody not on the list - don't feel bad. This was about getting a good _feeling_ for how the top kernel maintainers - judging purely by an admittedly fairly arbitrary, but also very neutral, measure - felt about the license. If the result had turned out very differently, I would probably have had to seriously re-think my stance on the license. I don't guarantee that I always change my mind, but I _can_ guarantee that if most of the people I trust tell me I'm a dick-head, I'll at least give it a passing thought. [ Chorus: "You're a dick-head, Linus" ] Anyway, nobody got voted off the island. This was a poll, to get a view into what people thought. Take it as such, and I think people will happily discuss issues. Different people had different issues with the GPLv3, so the separate white-paper that was written was done by a different group, and is meant for a different reason - it talks about some of the issues those particular people wanted to point out. My personal opinion is that a lot of the public discussion has been driven by people who are motivated by the politics of the discussion. So you have a lot of very vocal GPLv3 supporters. But I think that the people who actually end up doing a lot of the development are usually not as vocal, and haev actually not been heard very much at all. In some sense, the poll is a way for the people who actually do a lot of the work to show that the FSF doesn't speak for necessarily even a very big portion of actual developers. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-22 20:04 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-22 21:25 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-22 21:44 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-23 0:11 ` David Schwartz ` (2 more replies) 2006-09-23 8:10 ` Jan Engelhardt 2 siblings, 3 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-22 21:44 UTC (permalink / raw) To: David Schwartz; +Cc: linux-kernel [ Sorry if this shows up twice - the first post to linux-kernel was apparently eaten by an over-eager spam filter with an agenda ;^] On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, David Schwartz wrote: > > This is probably going to be controversial, but Linus should seriously > consider adding a clause that those who contribute to the kernel from now on > consent to allow him to modify the license on their current contributions > and all past contributions, amending the Linux kernel license as > appropriate. This would at least begin to reduce this problem over the next > few years, leaving fewer and fewer people with claim to less and less code > who would have legal standing to object. It's the last thing I'd ever want to do, for all the same reasons the kernel doesn't have the "or later versions" language wrt licenses. I don't actually want people to need to trust anybody - and that very much includes me - implicitly. I think people can generally trust me, but they can trust me exactly because they know they don't _have_ to. The reason the poll and the whitepaper got started was that I've obviously not been all that happy with the GPLv3, and while I was pretty sure I was not alone in that opinion, I also realize that _everybody_ thinks that they are right, and that they are supported by all other right-thinking people. That's just how people work. We all think we're better than average. So while I personally thought it was pretty clear that the GPLv2 was the better license for the kernel, I didn't want to just depend on my own personal opinion, but I wanted to feel that I had actually made my best to ask people. Now, I could have done it all directly on the Linux-kernel mailing list, but let's face it, that would just have caused a long discussion and we'd not have really been any better off anyway. So instead, I did git log | grep -i signed-off-by: | cut -d: -f2- | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | less -S which anybody else can do on their copy of their git repository, and I just picked the first screenful of people (and Alan. And later we added three more people after somebody pointed out that some top people use multiple email addresses so my initial filtering hadn't counted for them properly). [ I also double-checked by just checking the same numbers for authorship. I'll very openly admit to thinking that the maintainership that goes with forwarding other peoples patches to me counts as almost as important as the authorship itself, which is why I started out with the signed-off-by count, but I also wanted to verify that the list of people makes sense either way. It did. ] In other words, maybe some people thought that the 29 names were somehow "selected" to get that particular answer. Nope. The only selection was just an arbitrary cut-off-point (and the fact that I think two people didn't actually vote). It wasn't meant to be really "definitive" - the poll was literally meant to get _some_ kind of view into how the top developers feel. I think the end result ended up being more definitive (just thanks to the very clear voting pattern) than we migth have expected. So, to anybody not on the list - don't feel bad. This was about getting a good _feeling_ for how the top kernel maintainers - judging purely by an admittedly fairly arbitrary, but also very neutral, measure - felt about the license. If the result had turned out very differently, I would probably have had to seriously re-think my stance on the license. I don't guarantee that I always change my mind, but I _can_ guarantee that if most of the people I trust tell me I'm a dick-head, I'll at least give it a passing thought. [ Chorus: "You're a dick-head, Linus" ] Anyway, nobody got voted off the island. This was a poll, to get a view into what people thought. Take it as such, and I think people will happily discuss issues. Different people had different issues with the GPLv3, so the separate white-paper that was written was done by a different group, and is meant for a different reason - it talks about some of the issues those particular people wanted to point out. My personal opinion is that a lot of the public discussion has been driven by people who are motivated by the politics of the discussion. So you have a lot of very vocal GPLv3 supporters. But I think that the people who actually end up doing a lot of the development are usually not as vocal, and haev actually not been heard very much at all. In some sense, the poll is a way for the people who actually do a lot of the work to show that the FSF doesn't speak for necessarily even a very big portion of actual developers. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-22 21:44 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-23 0:11 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-23 1:36 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-23 7:28 ` Paul Jackson 2006-09-23 8:05 ` Manu Abraham 2006-09-23 15:32 ` Oleg Verych 2 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: David Schwartz @ 2006-09-23 0:11 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org > On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, David Schwartz wrote: > > This is probably going to be controversial, but Linus should seriously > > consider adding a clause that those who contribute to the > > kernel from now on > > consent to allow him to modify the license on their current > > contributions > > and all past contributions, amending the Linux kernel license as > > appropriate. This would at least begin to reduce this problem > > over the next > > few years, leaving fewer and fewer people with claim to less > > and less code > > who would have legal standing to object. > It's the last thing I'd ever want to do, for all the same reasons the > kernel doesn't have the "or later versions" language wrt licenses. > I don't actually want people to need to trust anybody - and that > very much includes me - implicitly. > I think people can generally trust me, but they can trust me exactly > because they know they don't _have_ to. Yeah, I see your point. However, what happens if three years from now, there is some reason that the Linux kernel license really does need to be changed to fix a serious problem? We're basically just screwed. While it is true that people don't have to trust you now. They do have to trust/hope that there won't come a future time when some license problem or change in law significantly impairs their ability to use Linux. I can think of procedural safeguards against the "Linus sells out" or "Linus goes insane" potential problems, but I don't have a perfect solution. I'm not even sure I have a good one, other than hoping there never is such a problem and/or that there's some good way to deal with one should one arise. Suppose hypothetically GPLv3 had been really, really good and there was a general consensus that it would provide siginficant benefits if it could be applied to Linux. It might be nice to be able to apply it. DS ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-23 0:11 ` David Schwartz @ 2006-09-23 1:36 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-23 7:28 ` Paul Jackson 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-23 1:36 UTC (permalink / raw) To: David Schwartz; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, David Schwartz wrote: > > I can think of procedural safeguards against the "Linus sells out" or "Linus > goes insane" potential problems, but I don't have a perfect solution. I don't think one exists. The thing is, there's an entirely non-legal reason to never do something like that, namely just the psychology of the thing. Licenses are important for legal reasons (because problems can arise), but I would say that licenses are even *more* important as to how developers see them. And I know that I'm personally very much turned off by any license that grants any particular party any special powers. It doesn't matter _how_ much I respect or trust the party in question, I wouldn't want to use that license. So any license wording that said that I have any special powers would, I'm sure, alienate a large portion of the people who matter - the developers. So the thing is, we're _much_ better off with nobody that firmly "in charge", over the alternative. Everybody feels safer. Nobody needs to worry about me or anybody else suddenly going crazy. Remember: the perfect is the enemy of the good. Asking for things that are perfect "in theory" usually just results in things that are horrible "in practice". So not having anybody in charge could _in_theory_ cause problems. But _in_practice_ it's a hell of a lot better than somebody that people need to worry about. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-23 0:11 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-23 1:36 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-23 7:28 ` Paul Jackson 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Paul Jackson @ 2006-09-23 7:28 UTC (permalink / raw) To: davids; +Cc: linux-kernel > However, what happens if three years from now, ... Yes - the asteroid may destroy us all. But the greater, almost inevitable, risk comes from the centralization of too much power. Once an authority exists to unilaterally impose a license change on Linux, it becomes like the ring in The Lord of the Rings, a thing of evil potential. Best not to create the ring in the first place. Besides, I suspect my company's lawyer might discourage me from submitting patches to the kernel if its license could be unilaterally changed by some third party, whether Linus or even the esteemed David S. To the top 30 maintainers who performed this GPLv3 analysis - nice job. -- I won't rest till it's the best ... Programmer, Linux Scalability Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com> 1.925.600.0401 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-22 21:44 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-23 0:11 ` David Schwartz @ 2006-09-23 8:05 ` Manu Abraham 2006-09-23 15:32 ` Oleg Verych 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Manu Abraham @ 2006-09-23 8:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds; +Cc: David Schwartz, linux-kernel Linus Torvalds wrote: > [ Sorry if this shows up twice - the first post to linux-kernel was > apparently eaten by an over-eager spam filter with an agenda ;^] > > On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, David Schwartz wrote: >> This is probably going to be controversial, but Linus should seriously >> consider adding a clause that those who contribute to the kernel from now on >> consent to allow him to modify the license on their current contributions >> and all past contributions, amending the Linux kernel license as >> appropriate. This would at least begin to reduce this problem over the next >> few years, leaving fewer and fewer people with claim to less and less code >> who would have legal standing to object. > > It's the last thing I'd ever want to do, for all the same reasons the > kernel doesn't have the "or later versions" language wrt licenses. > > I don't actually want people to need to trust anybody - and that very much > includes me - implicitly. > > I think people can generally trust me, but they can trust me exactly > because they know they don't _have_ to. > > The reason the poll and the whitepaper got started was that I've obviously > not been all that happy with the GPLv3, and while I was pretty sure I was > not alone in that opinion, I also realize that _everybody_ thinks that > they are right, and that they are supported by all other right-thinking > people. That's just how people work. We all think we're better than > average. > > So while I personally thought it was pretty clear that the GPLv2 was the > better license for the kernel, I didn't want to just depend on my own > personal opinion, but I wanted to feel that I had actually made my best to > ask people. Regarding the GPLv2 vs v3 debate, i don't think anyone is in favour of a different view, but .. > Now, I could have done it all directly on the Linux-kernel mailing list, > but let's face it, that would just have caused a long discussion and we'd > not have really been any better off anyway. So instead, I did > > git log | grep -i signed-off-by: | > cut -d: -f2- | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | less -S When applied to subsystems, the patch author "A" applies his/her patch to the repo, the MAINTAINER cherry picks the patches for submitting to the kernel. In such a case, it becomes, Signed-off-by: A Signed-off-by: MAINTAINER in a subsystem there are indeed many contributors, eventually it is indeed Signed-off-by: "x" Signed-off-by: MAINTAINER So it is indeed incorrect to term that the MAINTAINER is the most popular Contributor, because the CONTRIBUTOR is the PATCH AUTHOR himself, not the MAINTAINER. Manu ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-22 21:44 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-23 0:11 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-23 8:05 ` Manu Abraham @ 2006-09-23 15:32 ` Oleg Verych [not found] ` <Pine.LNX.4.64.0609230941530.4388@g5.osdl.org> 2 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Oleg Verych @ 2006-09-23 15:32 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel On 2006-09-22, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> wrote: > > On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, David Schwartz wrote: >> >> This is probably going to be controversial, but Linus should seriously [...] > > I don't actually want people to need to trust anybody - and that very much > includes me - implicitly. > > I think people can generally trust me, but they can trust me exactly > because they know they don't _have_ to. And somebody chooses anoter license, f.e see: linux/drivers/video/aty/radeon_base.c > > Now, I could have done it all directly on the Linux-kernel mailing list, > but let's face it, that would just have caused a long discussion and we'd > not have really been any better off anyway. So instead, I did > > git log | grep -i signed-off-by: | > cut -d: -f2- | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | less -S > > which anybody else can do on their copy of their git repository, and I > just picked the first screenful of people (and Alan. And later we added > three more people after somebody pointed out that some top people use Alan *is on top* of (old fashioned, gitless): $ for i in `find linux/drivers/` do dd count=1 <$i | grep @ | sed 's_[^<]*<\(.*@.*\)>[^>]*_\1_g' done | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | most And what about linux/CREDITS ? Creating (even in the past) is also worth. As Adrian Bunk noted, there are may who contibuted, still CREDITS has reasonable size. Search above && grep in CREDITS 50 / 50 from the git logs would be better ;D. I would, say H. Peter Anvin, Vojtech Pavlik, Patrick Mochel, Pavel Machek are also major contributors. Cheers, guys ! [i usually do credit search on stuff i read in the kernel, so that is IMHO] -o--=O`C 5 years ago TT and WTC7 were assassinated. #oo'L O Learn more how (tm) <http://911research.com> <___=E M ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0609230941530.4388@g5.osdl.org>]
* Forwarded message from Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> @ 2006-09-23 21:04 ` Oleg Verych 2006-09-27 1:19 ` The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? Oleg Verych 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Oleg Verych @ 2006-09-23 21:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel ----- Forwarded message from Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> ----- Envelope-to: olecom@flower.upol.cz Delivery-date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 19:36:21 +0200 From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> To: Oleg Verych <olecom@flower.upol.cz> cc: David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> Subject: Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? On Sat, 23 Sep 2006, Oleg Verych wrote: > > On 2006-09-22, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> wrote: > > > > I don't actually want people to need to trust anybody - and that very much > > includes me - implicitly. > > > > I think people can generally trust me, but they can trust me exactly > > because they know they don't _have_ to. > > And somebody chooses anoter license, f.e see: > linux/drivers/video/aty/radeon_base.c We have always (and will continue to do so) accepted licenses that are compatible with the GPLv2 for the kernel. That's also the only reason we also have files that are marked "GPLv2 or later": that license (the same was as the BSD license) allows a superset of what the GPLv2 allows, and is as such compatible. I think this is a strength, and I also think it's something that most developers want. People have to accept the GPLv2 (because the kernel as a whole is GPLv2), but it's ok to then allow extended rights for certain files. For example, some of the SCSI drivers were co-maintained with the BSD's, so having those be dual-licensed was the only sane thing to do. (And the one you point to is basically co-maintained with X.org, so it falls under the same situation). A pure GPLv3 contribution is obviously not compatible with a GPLv2, but if anybody thought that the informal poll was in any way going to remove the files that had "v2 or any later", then no. We'll very much continue to have various dual-licensed code. (Some of the dual-licensing isn't even with open source licenses. Some people release their code both under the GPLv2 _and_ separately they license use their own code in a commercial product too. You just don't see that as much in the kernel, since that "separation" tends to happen outside, so by the time the code is integrated into the kernel, the proprietary licensed version has already been split off). > > just picked the first screenful of people (and Alan. And later we added > > three more people after somebody pointed out that some top people use > > Alan *is on top* of (old fashioned, gitless): > > $ for i in `find linux/drivers/` > do dd count=1 <$i | grep @ | sed 's_[^<]*<\(.*@.*\)>[^>]*_\1_g' > done | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | most Well, quite frankly, I don't think the copyright messages in the source code is necessarily very good. Some people add them, most don't. But yes, for obvious reasons Alan was added _regardless_ of any counts. > And what about linux/CREDITS ? Creating (even in the past) is also worth. And what about the old history from BK time? And what about a million other ways? There's no "one" right answer, but I doubt you'll find any really obviously better answers than the one I picked. In other words, yes, there are other ways to count things. This was a poll. And I do think the list of people was a very good list, because while the particular way it was generated (from current -git sources), I did actually double-check it different ways (including my own gut feel, and verifying that the "author" and "sign-off" lists roughtly matched, etc) Btw, if it makes you feel any better, if you look at the old linux-historic archive (which goes back another 3+ years), and do the same statistics, it's quite impressive how similar the list would be (Alan _did_ show up on that list on his own, btw). So I claim that my list of people is one of the better lists you can come up with. The really arbitrary point was the cut-off, and I could have picked 50 or a hundred people instead of just a screenful. That's not the point. It's a poll, and I do claim it's statistically relevant. The _real_ thing I wanted to avoid was yet another poll where "loudmouth" counted. I've seen enough of those, thank you very much. If I wanted a poll where the only thing that counted was how much you love the FSF and how willing you were to be vocal about it, I'd have gone to osnews or some other random site. This poll was for the people who actually DO things, not just make political noises about licensing. Linus ----- End forwarded message ----- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-23 21:04 ` Forwarded message from Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> Oleg Verych @ 2006-09-27 1:19 ` Oleg Verych 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Oleg Verych @ 2006-09-27 1:19 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel [ Sorry for errors with CC, and ugly forwarded message ] [ <slrnehb8ch.9ia.olecom@deen.upol.cz.local>, refs had have to be added. ] Linus, On Sat, Sep 23, 2006 at 10:03:49AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > On Sat, 23 Sep 2006, Oleg Verych wrote: > > > > > On 2006-09-22, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> wrote: > > > > > > I don't actually want people to need to trust anybody - and that very much > > > includes me - implicitly. > > > > > > I think people can generally trust me, but they can trust me exactly > > > because they know they don't _have_ to. > > > > And somebody chooses anoter license, f.e see: > > linux/drivers/video/aty/radeon_base.c > > We have always (and will continue to do so) accepted licenses that are > compatible with the GPLv2 for the kernel. just wanted to point that comment about your PETv2. [...] > > > just picked the first screenful of people (and Alan. And later we added > > > three more people after somebody pointed out that some top people use > > > > Alan *is on top* of (old fashioned, gitless): > > > > $ for i in `find linux/drivers/` > > do dd count=1 <$i | grep @ | sed 's_[^<]*<\(.*@.*\)>[^>]*_\1_g' > > done | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | most > > Well, quite frankly, I don't think the copyright messages in the source > code is necessarily very good. Some people add them, most don't. This is a surprise for me; big IT companies' time ? I know about per-contribution mark-credit via sign-off, you've talked about, but initial creating of big chunk must and, as i can see, have all that copyrights, even from guys from big IT. It seems, that you don't care much. Well, in case of mr. Alan Cox i do care. > > But yes, for obvious reasons Alan was added _regardless_ of any counts. > > > And what about linux/CREDITS ? Creating (even in the past) is also worth. > > And what about the old history from BK time? And what about a million where's BK, and where is the kernel ? I'm even glad to have hard proof inside of current kernel. After many years, great job is hard to hide. For example, even nowdays ac patchset is positively commented (some days ago i've read Russell's message about arm tree maintainig). > > Btw, if it makes you feel any better, if you look at the old > linux-historic archive (which goes back another 3+ years), and do the same Still big IT time, > statistics, it's quite impressive how similar the list would be (Alan > _did_ show up on that list on his own, btw). i thought about 5-10 years ago, actually. > So I claim that my list of people is one of the better lists you can come > up with. "if it makes you feel any better" ;D The Free Software Foundation have only toolchain as big GPLv2 product. But it has LGPL parts. Functionality implemented in libraries, thus GPL itself applies to small (mostly sf.net dead) pieces of application. The Linux Kernel is pure GPL. (all boiler-plate license blobs or binary blobs do not mater) Thus, i think, FSF just will not have anything without it. And i don't know why rms started all that... -o--=O`C /. .\ (i want ...) (+) #oo'L O o | <___=E M ^-- | (you're barking up the wrong tree)... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-22 20:04 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-22 21:25 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-22 21:44 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-23 8:10 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-23 17:38 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-23 18:00 ` Linus Torvalds 2 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-23 8:10 UTC (permalink / raw) To: David Schwartz; +Cc: linux-kernel > >Second, I should point out again that it is unfortunate that Linus did not >retain for himself the exclusive right to modify the Linux kernel license. >If some real problem ever does emerge in the GPLv2 as applies to Linux, it >will be extremely difficult to resolve. > Easy to resolve, but difficult to implement: remove the offending code (and rewrite). >This is probably going to be controversial, but Linus should seriously >consider adding a clause that those who contribute to the kernel from >now on consent to allow him to modify the license on their current >contributions and all past contributions, amending the Linux kernel >license as appropriate. Now that you raise it: I think developers can already have done that if they wish - properly name author and conditions who may possibly change the license to what. Not that I have seen such code yet, but you never know. Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-23 8:10 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-23 17:38 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-23 18:00 ` Linus Torvalds 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: David Schwartz @ 2006-09-23 17:38 UTC (permalink / raw) To: jengelh; +Cc: linux-kernel > Now that you raise it: I think developers can already have done that > if they wish - properly name author and conditions who may possibly > change the license to what. Not that I have seen such code yet, but you > never know. > > Jan Engelhardt That's true. Nothing prevents a kernel contributor from including with his code an offer to license that same code under different conditions. However, the more I think about Linus' point, the more I realize how hard it is to write such an offer that wouldn't be likely to do more harm than good. DS ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-23 8:10 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-23 17:38 ` David Schwartz @ 2006-09-23 18:00 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-23 18:14 ` Petr Baudis 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-23 18:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt; +Cc: David Schwartz, linux-kernel On Sat, 23 Sep 2006, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > > Now that you raise it: I think developers can already have done that > if they wish - properly name author and conditions who may possibly > change the license to what. Not that I have seen such code yet, but you > never know. Side note: in "git", we kind of discussed this. And because the project was started when the whole GPL version discussion was already in bloom, the git project has a note at top of the COPYING file that says: Note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as this project is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated. HOWEVER, in order to allow a migration to GPLv3 if that seems like a good idea, I also ask that people involved with the project make their preferences known. In particular, if you trust me to make that decision, you might note so in your copyright message, ie something like This file is licensed under the GPL v2, or a later version at the discretion of Linus. might avoid issues. But we can also just decide to synchronize and contact all copyright holders on record if/when the occasion arises. but note how it's still at the discretion of the actual developers (ie when you add a file, you can either not specify any extensions, in which case it's "GPLv2 only", or you can specify "GPLv2 or any later", or you can specify the "GPLv2 or any later at the discretion of Linus Torvalds". The silly thing, of course, is that I'm not even the maintainer any more, and that Junio has done a kick-ass job of maintaining the thing, and is definitely the main author by now. So the whole "discretion of Linus" is a bit insane. [ Although exactly _because_ Junio has been such a great maintainer, I'd bow down to whatever decision he does, so my "discretion" would be to let him decide, if he wanted to. At some point, you have to trust some people, and just let go - if they do more than you do, they damn well have more rights than you do too. "Maintainership has its privileges" ] Anyway, I suspect the git language was a mistake. We should just have done what the kernel did - make the version number be clear and fixed, so that people don't even have to worry about exactly what conditions might cause a relicensing to happen. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-23 18:00 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-23 18:14 ` Petr Baudis 2006-09-24 7:53 ` Jan Engelhardt 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Petr Baudis @ 2006-09-23 18:14 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds; +Cc: Jan Engelhardt, David Schwartz, linux-kernel, git (Quoting in full for the git@ people.) Dear diary, on Sat, Sep 23, 2006 at 08:00:23PM CEST, I got a letter where Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> said that... > On Sat, 23 Sep 2006, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > > > > Now that you raise it: I think developers can already have done that > > if they wish - properly name author and conditions who may possibly > > change the license to what. Not that I have seen such code yet, but you > > never know. > > Side note: in "git", we kind of discussed this. And because the project > was started when the whole GPL version discussion was already in bloom, > the git project has a note at top of the COPYING file that says: > > Note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as this project > is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not > v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated. > > HOWEVER, in order to allow a migration to GPLv3 if that seems like > a good idea, I also ask that people involved with the project make > their preferences known. In particular, if you trust me to make that > decision, you might note so in your copyright message, ie something > like > > This file is licensed under the GPL v2, or a later version > at the discretion of Linus. > > might avoid issues. But we can also just decide to synchronize and > contact all copyright holders on record if/when the occasion arises. > > but note how it's still at the discretion of the actual developers (ie > when you add a file, you can either not specify any extensions, in which > case it's "GPLv2 only", or you can specify "GPLv2 or any later", or you > can specify the "GPLv2 or any later at the discretion of Linus Torvalds". > > The silly thing, of course, is that I'm not even the maintainer any more, > and that Junio has done a kick-ass job of maintaining the thing, and is > definitely the main author by now. So the whole "discretion of Linus" is a > bit insane. > > [ Although exactly _because_ Junio has been such a great maintainer, I'd > bow down to whatever decision he does, so my "discretion" would be to > let him decide, if he wanted to. At some point, you have to trust some > people, and just let go - if they do more than you do, they damn well > have more rights than you do too. "Maintainership has its privileges" ] > > Anyway, I suspect the git language was a mistake. We should just have done > what the kernel did - make the version number be clear and fixed, so that > people don't even have to worry about exactly what conditions might cause > a relicensing to happen. Actually, this didn't catch on very well anyway, I guess because most people just know it's GPLv2 and don't even bother to peek at COPYING, we are a bit sloppy about copyright notices and most of them don't mention licence at all (if there are any in the file at all), and adding explicit copyright notices to mails isn't too popular either. $ git grep 'discretion' COPYING: at the discretion of Linus. git-annotate.perl:# at the discretion of Linus Torvalds. git-relink.perl:# Later versions of the GPL at the discretion of Linus Torvalds git-request-pull.sh:# at the discretion of Linus Torvalds. and I've found no patches with such special assignment. I think people don't really want to bother with thinking too much about licences at all unless absolutely necessary, they just want to do the fun part (coding). :-) -- Petr "Pasky" Baudis Stuff: http://pasky.or.cz/ #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-23 18:14 ` Petr Baudis @ 2006-09-24 7:53 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-24 16:34 ` Linus Torvalds 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-24 7:53 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Petr Baudis; +Cc: Linus Torvalds, David Schwartz, linux-kernel, git >> Side note: in "git", we kind of discussed this. And because the project >> was started when the whole GPL version discussion was already in bloom, >> the git project has a note at top of the COPYING file that says: >> >> Note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as this project >> is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not >> v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated. >> >> HOWEVER, in order to allow a migration to GPLv3 if that seems like >> a good idea, I also ask that people involved with the project make >> their preferences known. In particular, if you trust me to make that >> decision, you might note so in your copyright message, ie something >> like >> >> This file is licensed under the GPL v2, or a later version >> at the discretion of Linus. >> > > Actually, this didn't catch on very well anyway, I guess because most >people just know it's GPLv2 and don't even bother to peek at COPYING, we >are a bit sloppy about copyright notices and most of them don't mention >licence at all (if there are any in the file at all), and adding >explicit copyright notices to mails isn't too popular either. Would every file that does not contain an explicit license (this excludes MODULE_LICENSE) falls under COPYING? > $ git grep 'discretion' > COPYING: at the discretion of Linus. > git-annotate.perl:# at the discretion of Linus Torvalds. > git-relink.perl:# Later versions of the GPL at the discretion of Linus Torvalds > git-request-pull.sh:# at the discretion of Linus Torvalds. > >and I've found no patches with such special assignment. Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-24 7:53 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-24 16:34 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-25 5:59 ` Jan Engelhardt 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-24 16:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt; +Cc: Petr Baudis, David Schwartz, linux-kernel, git On Sun, 24 Sep 2006, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > > Would every file that does not contain an explicit license (this > excludes MODULE_LICENSE) falls under COPYING? Basically, yes. There's nothing to really say that you need to state your copyright license in every individual file, especially if those files are only ever distributed as a whole, together with other things (which souce code obviously is - you generally cannot even use an individual *.c file without the infrastructure it was written for). If a file doesn't have a license mentioned, it doesn't mean that it's "free for all" or not copyrighted, it just means that you need to find out what the license is some other way (and if you can't find out, you shouldn't be copying that file ;) Of course, for clarity, a lot of projects end up adding at least a minimal copyright header license everywhere, just to cover their *sses. It's not required, but maybe it avoids some confusion, especially if that file is later copied into some other project with other basic rules (but if you do that, you really _should_ have added the information at that point!). Me personally, I prefer to not see huge boiler-plate licenses at the top of the file, so that every time I open a new file I just see the dang license that has nothing to do with why I'm opening it. So I tend to do a fairly minimal thing ("Copyright (C) Linus Torvalds 2006" or similar) but sometimes I drop even that (ie I personally feel silly adding a copyright message to a header file, so I usually don't - and sometimes I just forget about it in real source files too).. Others are more anal^H^H^H^Hcareful, and tend to add a few lines to tell what the license is, the ubiqutous "all rights reserved" (which is just idiocy), and a blinking gif advertisement for their company. Oh, and the "no warranty" clause. And an aphorism or two. In other words, I don't think there are any real rules. Different people and different projects have more or less different rules. If you expect to collect treble damages in the US, you might want to add a copyright notice just about everywhere, "just in case", and to "show you really care". IANAL, of course. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-24 16:34 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-25 5:59 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-25 15:14 ` Linus Torvalds 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-25 5:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds; +Cc: Petr Baudis, David Schwartz, linux-kernel, git >> Would every file that does not contain an explicit license (this >> excludes MODULE_LICENSE) falls under COPYING? > >[...] >If a file doesn't have a license mentioned, it doesn't mean that it's >"free for all" or not copyrighted, it just means that you need to find out >what the license is some other way (and if you can't find out, you >shouldn't be copying that file ;) > >Of course, for clarity, a lot of projects end up adding at least a minimal >copyright header license everywhere, just to cover their *sses. It's not >required, but maybe it avoids some confusion, especially if that file is >later copied into some other project with other basic rules (but if you >do that, you really _should_ have added the information at that point!). >[...] Though I strongly agree with you, some GNU folks (such as savannah.nongnu.org) seem to explicitly require it, even for files that do not make up a single program (i.e. like coreutils/ls.c). Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? 2006-09-25 5:59 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-25 15:14 ` Linus Torvalds 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-25 15:14 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt; +Cc: Petr Baudis, David Schwartz, linux-kernel, git On Mon, 25 Sep 2006, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > > Though I strongly agree with you, some GNU folks (such as > savannah.nongnu.org) seem to explicitly require it, even for files > that do not make up a single program (i.e. like coreutils/ls.c). Each project obviously has its own rules. The kernel, in many ways, these days does something even stronger, in the sense that we now ask not that every file be marked, but each and every change be signed-off-on. It's more than a copyright issue, of course (it started out motivated by the worries of tracking codeflow, but I think one reason it has worked so well is that it's become useful for so many other things). So lots of projects have their specific rules. I don't think the "add notice to every file" is wrong per se, I just think it's impractical: not only does it get unwieldly with all those messages at the top, usually an open source project ends up being a mix of lots of different people that own rights in it, and in many ways it's thus better to track at a change level rather than a file level if you do tracking. But exactly because it doesn't have any real legal rules, the rules are from other sources, and boil down mainly to just per-project "coding style" issues. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
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* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement [not found] ` <200609221359.39519.gene.heskett@verizon.net> @ 2006-09-22 18:08 ` James Bottomley 2006-09-22 18:30 ` Gene Heskett 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: James Bottomley @ 2006-09-22 18:08 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Gene Heskett; +Cc: linux-kernel On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 13:59 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote: > James, I'm most definitely NOT a kernel developer, just a lurker who > occasionally exhibits his lack of knowledge with (usually) dumb questions. > > But, while I can't say the above any better than you have, I do have one > question: > > Why is the FSF and RMS not included in the Cc: line of all messages on this > subject, so they can have first hand, the benefit of the remarks this > group makes by reading about them from the first person? You folks are, > as a group, the movers and shakers in the advancement of linux, and would > continue to do so without the gnu trying to claim they invented linux, > which we all know is a prevarication. Basically because this is a discussion document, not an open letter. We had some discussion amongst a small group of kernel developers. Now we're opening it up to the linux community---which we can't do without effectively going public as well. James ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 18:08 ` GPLv3 Position Statement James Bottomley @ 2006-09-22 18:30 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-22 18:34 ` Jeff Garzik ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-22 18:30 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel; +Cc: James Bottomley On Friday 22 September 2006 14:08, James Bottomley wrote: >On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 13:59 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote: >> James, I'm most definitely NOT a kernel developer, just a lurker who >> occasionally exhibits his lack of knowledge with (usually) dumb >> questions. >> >> But, while I can't say the above any better than you have, I do have >> one question: >> >> Why is the FSF and RMS not included in the Cc: line of all messages on >> this subject, so they can have first hand, the benefit of the remarks >> this group makes by reading about them from the first person? You >> folks are, as a group, the movers and shakers in the advancement of >> linux, and would continue to do so without the gnu trying to claim they >> invented linux, which we all know is a prevarication. > >Basically because this is a discussion document, not an open letter. > >We had some discussion amongst a small group of kernel developers. Now >we're opening it up to the linux community---which we can't do without >effectively going public as well. > >James Well, since this document states the general consensus quite well, and is not likely to be edited other than crossing all the t's, I think including them (FSF & RMS) would show them just how concerned the major developers are with the deviciveness that the proposed V3, as worded say a month ago the last time I read it and was appalled, will cause. You, nor the rest of the fans of a great os, will ever be properly served. You need to remind RMS that he is not a majority when the vote shows otherwise by a quite resounding margin, and that he and the FSF may well become irrevalent if the V2 is not going to be supported after V3 is final. Let me put it this way, I would be willing to become a paying member of a new organization dedicated to preserving the V2 status if the due weren't too onnerous. If V3 becomes the defacto, then my membership in the FSF will get dropped like a hot potato. I'm just one person, but how many other paying members will do likewise? Enough to cause a serious hurt to the FSF's finances I'd think. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 18:30 ` Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-22 18:34 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-22 18:52 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-22 19:05 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-25 6:33 ` Marc Perkel 2 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-22 18:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Gene Heskett; +Cc: linux-kernel, James Bottomley Gene Heskett wrote: > You need to remind RMS that he is not a majority when the vote shows > otherwise by a quite resounding margin, and that he and the FSF may well > become irrevalent if the V2 is not going to be supported after V3 is > final. Pretty much. Also consider the "v3 probably won't be compatible with v2" license compatibility headaches that will abound, given the number of people that oppose GPL v3 so far. Jeff ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 18:34 ` Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-22 18:52 ` Gene Heskett 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-22 18:52 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel; +Cc: Jeff Garzik, James Bottomley On Friday 22 September 2006 14:34, Jeff Garzik wrote: >Gene Heskett wrote: >> You need to remind RMS that he is not a majority when the vote shows >> otherwise by a quite resounding margin, and that he and the FSF may >> well become irrevalent if the V2 is not going to be supported after V3 >> is final. > >Pretty much. > >Also consider the "v3 probably won't be compatible with v2" license >compatibility headaches that will abound, given the number of people >that oppose GPL v3 so far. > > Jeff > The question then Jeff, is: Since when is this os a democracy, where there are voting rights? The ultimate big red veto for the kernel at least, is for Linus to stamp on it, and thats the one that many, if not all, will follow. If the top 50 contributors were to lean on Linus to change his mind, giving lucid arguments, he, haveing an open mind might consider it. OTOH, given this vote tally, he'd not be foolish enough to buck that, its a confirmation of his own feelings. Unforch, here we all stand (0r sit), preaching to the choir, when its the FSF and RMS we need to be subjecting to the sermon by giving them the chapter and verse of the book we generally follow. YMMV of course. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 18:30 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-22 18:34 ` Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-22 19:05 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-22 18:54 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-25 6:33 ` Marc Perkel 2 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Alan Cox @ 2006-09-22 19:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Gene Heskett; +Cc: linux-kernel, James Bottomley Ar Gwe, 2006-09-22 am 14:30 -0400, ysgrifennodd Gene Heskett: > final. Let me put it this way, I would be willing to become a paying > member of a new organization dedicated to preserving the V2 status if the > due weren't too onnerous. What probably matters more in that situation, and I hope its one that doesn't arise - v3 is in draft and there is fixing time left for many issues - is people to maintain the other projects which will get forked from the FSF if it were to happen: glibc, gcc, etc. My guess is many of these projects would effectively leave the FSF if this happened. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 19:05 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-09-22 18:54 ` Gene Heskett 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-22 18:54 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel; +Cc: Alan Cox, James Bottomley On Friday 22 September 2006 15:05, Alan Cox wrote: >Ar Gwe, 2006-09-22 am 14:30 -0400, ysgrifennodd Gene Heskett: >> final. Let me put it this way, I would be willing to become a paying >> member of a new organization dedicated to preserving the V2 status if >> the due weren't too onnerous. > >What probably matters more in that situation, and I hope its one that >doesn't arise - v3 is in draft and there is fixing time left for many >issues - is people to maintain the other projects which will get forked >from the FSF if it were to happen: glibc, gcc, etc. My guess is many of >these projects would effectively leave the FSF if this happened. I'd almost place bets on that list, Alan. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 18:30 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-22 18:34 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-22 19:05 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-09-25 6:33 ` Marc Perkel 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Marc Perkel @ 2006-09-25 6:33 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel I have to say for wht it's worth that you did an excellent job of stating a very well reasons position on GPL3 and laid out in good detail the problems and consequences in a logical manner. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 16:15 GPLv3 Position Statement James Bottomley ` (2 preceding siblings ...) [not found] ` <200609221359.39519.gene.heskett@verizon.net> @ 2006-09-22 20:42 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-23 11:38 ` Florian Weimer ` (4 subsequent siblings) 8 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-22 20:42 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel James Bottomley wrote: > Although this white paper was discussed amongst the full group of kernel > developers who participated in the informal poll, as you can expect from > Linux Kernel Developers, there was a wide crossection of opinion. This > document is really only for discussion, and represents only the views of > the people listed as authors (not the full voting pool). > ---------- > > The Dangers and Problems with GPLv3 > > > James E.J. Bottomley Mauro Carvalho Chehab > Thomas Gleixner Christoph Hellwig Dave Jones > Greg Kroah-Hartman Tony Luck Andrew Morton > Trond Myklebust David Woodhouse To the slashdot, LWN, etc. crowd: please re-read the first paragraph, quoted above. The whitepaper only represents the views of the people listed as authors. That is distinct from the people who voted against GPL v3 in its current form (for some or even none of the whitepaper-listed reasons). Jeff ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 16:15 GPLv3 Position Statement James Bottomley ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-22 20:42 ` Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-23 11:38 ` Florian Weimer 2006-09-25 2:44 ` An Ode to GPLv2 (was Re: GPLv3 Position Statement) Linus Torvalds ` (3 subsequent siblings) 8 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2006-09-23 11:38 UTC (permalink / raw) To: James Bottomley; +Cc: linux-kernel * James Bottomley: > Further, the FSF's attempts at drafting and re-drafting these > provisions have shown them to be a nasty minefield which keeps ensnaring > innocent and beneficial uses of encryption and DRM technologies so, on such > demonstrated pragmatic ground, these clauses are likewise dangerous and > difficult to get right and should have no place in a well drafted update to > GPLv2. There is a very simple litmus test for DRM code: code that cannot be altered or removed, according to applicable law or other agreements. The GPLv3 could forbid the addition of such code to a covered code base, I suppose. However, this runs contrary to the DRM-like optional clauses in the GPLv3 (mandatory access through sources over a communication channel, certain forms of copyright notices). I think several of these optional clauses are bad. Even the copyright notices can be annoying (although it's already in GPLv2). For instance, if I run emacs somefile.c from the command line, somefile.c doesn't show up on in the editor, but the copyright notice. Of course, you can put (defun display-splash-screen () (interactive)) in a startup file, but if you do this as a distributor, it might be a GPLv2 violation. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* An Ode to GPLv2 (was Re: GPLv3 Position Statement) 2006-09-22 16:15 GPLv3 Position Statement James Bottomley ` (4 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-23 11:38 ` Florian Weimer @ 2006-09-25 2:44 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-25 4:40 ` Willy Tarreau 2006-09-25 8:53 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Michiel de Boer ` (2 subsequent siblings) 8 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-25 2:44 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux Kernel Mailing List One of the reasons I didn't end up signing the GPLv3 position statement that James posted (and others had signed up for), was that a few weeks ago I had signed up for writing another kind of statement entirely: not so much about why I dislike the GPLv3, but why I think the GPLv2 is so great. (There were other reasons too, but never mind that.) I didn't get my fat arse off the ground on that, partly exactly because the developer poll of "which is better" which was related to that issue distracted me, but mostly because I just seldom write that kind of text - one thing the kernel work has conditioned me for is that I write _replies_ to email, I seldom start threads myself (I suspect most of my emails on linux-kernel that aren't replies are just release announcements). However, since there was a sub-thread on groklaw about the kernel developers opinions on the GPLv3, and since I did try to explain it there (as a reply to postings by PJ and others), and since some of those explanations ended up being exactly the "why the GPLv2 is so insanely great" that I never wrote otherwise, I thought I'd just repost that explanation as an alternative view. So this post is kind of another way to look at the whole GPLv3 issues: not caring so much about why the GPLv3 is worse, but a much more positive "Why the GPLv2 is _better_". I suspect some people may have an easier time seeing and reading that argument, since it's not as contentious. A lot of people seem to think that the GPLv2 is showing its age, but I would argue otherwise. Yes, the GPLv2 is "old" for being a copyright license, but it's not even that you don't want to mess with something that works - it's that it very fundamentally is such a good license that there's not a whole lot of room for fixing aside from pure wording issues. So without further ado, here's my personal "reply" to the the GPLv3 position statement. It's obviously not meant to repudiate James' text in any way, it's just an alternate view on the same questions.. I made other posts in the same thread on Groklaw thread, not as positive, and not perhaps as worthy and quotable. This one may be a bit out of context, but I do think it stands on its own, and you can see the full thread in the "GPL Upheld in Germany Against D-Link" discussions on Groklaw. The particular sub-thread was on what happens since we can't easily change update the license, called "So What is the Future Then?" (I'd like to point to the groklaw posts, but there doesn't seem to be any way to point to a particular comment without getting "The URL from Hell", so it's easier to just duplicate it here). Linus --- And thus spake PJ in response: "GPLv2 is not compatible with the Apache license. It doesn't cover Bitstream. It is ambiguous about web downloads. It allows Tivo to forbid modification. It has no patent protection clause. It isn't internationally useful everywhere, due to not matching the terms of art used elsewhere. It has no DMCA workaround or solution. It is silent about DRM." Exactly! That's why the GPLv2 is so great. Exactly because it doesn't bother or talk about anything else than the very generic issue of "tit-for-tat". You see it as a failure. I see it as a huge advantage. The GPLv2 covers the only thing that really matters, and the only thing that everybody can agree on ("tit-for-tat" is really something everybody understands, and sees the same way - it's totally independent of any moral judgement and any philosophical, cultural or economic background). The thing is, exactly because the GPLv2 is not talking about the details, but instead talks entirely about just a very simple issue, people can get together around it. You don't have to believe in the FSF or the tooth fairy to see the point of the GPLv2. It doesn't matter if you're black or white, commercial or non-commercial, man or woman, an individual or a corporation - you understand tit-or-tat. And that's also why legal details don't matter. Changes in law won't change the notion of "same for same". A change of language doesn't change "Quid pro quo". We can still say "quid pro quo" two thousand years later, in a language that has been dead for centuries, and the saying is still known by any half-educated person in the world. And that's exactly because the concept is so universal, and so fundamental, and so basic. And that is why the GPLv2 is a great license. I can't stress that enough. Sure, other licenses can say the same thing, but what the GPLv2 did was to be the first open-source license that made that "tit-for-tat" a legal license that was widely deployed. That's something that the FSF and rms should be proud of, rather than trying to ruin by adding all these totally unnecessary things that are ephemeral, and depend on some random worry of the day. That's also why I ended up changing the kernel license to the GPLv2. The original Linux source license said basically: "Give all source back, and never charge any money". It took me a few months, but I realized that the "never charge any money" part was just asinine. It wasn't the point. The point was always "give back in kind". Btw, on a personal note, I can even tell you where that "never charge any money" requirement came from. It came from my own frustrations with Minix as a poor student, where the cost of getting the system ($169 USD back then) was just absolutely prohibitive. I really disliked having to spend a huge amount of money (to me) for something that I just needed to make my machine useful. In other words, my original license very much had a "fear and loathing" component to it. It was exactly that "never charge any money" part. But I realized that in the end, it was never really about the money, and that what I really looked for in a license was the "fairness" thing. And that's what the GPLv2 is. It's "fair". It asks everybody - regardless of circumstance - for the same thing. It asks for the effort that was put into improving the software to be given back to the common good. You can use the end result any way you want (and if you want to use it for "bad" things, be my guest), but we ask the same exact thing of everybody - give your modifications back. That's true grace. Realizing that the petty concerns don't matter, whether they are money or DRM, or patents, or anything else. And that's why I chose the GPLv2. I did it back when the $169 I paid for Minix still stung me, because I just decided that that wasn't what it was all about. And I look at the additions to the GPLv3, and I still say: "That's not what it's all about". My original license was petty and into details. I don't need to go back to those days. I found a better license. And it's the GPLv2. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: An Ode to GPLv2 (was Re: GPLv3 Position Statement) 2006-09-25 2:44 ` An Ode to GPLv2 (was Re: GPLv3 Position Statement) Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-25 4:40 ` Willy Tarreau 2006-09-25 12:00 ` Arjan van de Ven 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Willy Tarreau @ 2006-09-25 4:40 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds; +Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List Hi Linus, On Sun, Sep 24, 2006 at 07:44:59PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: [...] > And thus spake PJ in response: > "GPLv2 is not compatible with the Apache license. It doesn't cover > Bitstream. It is ambiguous about web downloads. It allows Tivo to > forbid modification. It has no patent protection clause. It isn't > internationally useful everywhere, due to not matching the terms of > art used elsewhere. It has no DMCA workaround or solution. It is > silent about DRM." > > Exactly! > > That's why the GPLv2 is so great. Exactly because it doesn't bother or > talk about anything else than the very generic issue of "tit-for-tat". > > You see it as a failure. I see it as a huge advantage. The GPLv2 covers > the only thing that really matters, and the only thing that everybody can > agree on ("tit-for-tat" is really something everybody understands, and > sees the same way - it's totally independent of any moral judgement and > any philosophical, cultural or economic background). > > The thing is, exactly because the GPLv2 is not talking about the details, > but instead talks entirely about just a very simple issue, people can get > together around it. You don't have to believe in the FSF or the tooth > fairy to see the point of the GPLv2. It doesn't matter if you're black or > white, commercial or non-commercial, man or woman, an individual or a > corporation - you understand tit-or-tat. [...] > That's also why I ended up changing the kernel license to the GPLv2. The > original Linux source license said basically: "Give all source back, and > never charge any money". It took me a few months, but I realized that the > "never charge any money" part was just asinine. It wasn't the point. > The point was always "give back in kind". [...] > And that's what the GPLv2 is. It's "fair". It asks everybody - > regardless of circumstance - for the same thing. It asks for the effort > that was put into improving the software to be given back to the common > good. You can use the end result any way you want (and if you want to use > it for "bad" things, be my guest), but we ask the same exact thing of > everybody - give your modifications back. > > That's true grace. Realizing that the petty concerns don't matter, > whether they are money or DRM, or patents, or anything else. > > And that's why I chose the GPLv2. I did it back when the $169 I paid for > Minix still stung me, because I just decided that that wasn't what it was > all about. > > And I look at the additions to the GPLv3, and I still say: "That's not > what it's all about". > > My original license was petty and into details. I don't need to go back > to those days. I found a better license. And it's the GPLv2. That's an interesting analysis, and it somehow reflects one I had to do a few months back. After all the fuss about binary-only modules incompatibility with GPLv2, I wanted to change the license of haproxy to explicitly permit external binary-only code to be linked with it. It's a TCP/HTTP load balancer and people might sometimes have to implement algorithms under NDA for specific protocols, and I don't want to have to decide for them if it is the right tool for them or not. I don't either want to force them to release their code if I don't use it and if nobody has contributed to it. I just wanted them to give back any change they bring to the core. I spend a full week-end reading other licenses, and many others looked appealing but added specific clauses for patents, DRM, etc... which were too restrictive for the end user. Others in turn did not make provisions for feedback. I finally gave up, and decided that the GPLv2 was definitely the best one for the job. I only changed all the interfacing headers to LGPL and added a note to explicitly state that my intent was to allow people to write binary-only modules as long as they gave back their fixes or work on the core system they use. As a result, developers are free to choose how they work, and the type of contribution they expect from others, but they must respect the work of others. *That* is what I consider fair use. Just my 2 cents, Willy ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: An Ode to GPLv2 (was Re: GPLv3 Position Statement) 2006-09-25 4:40 ` Willy Tarreau @ 2006-09-25 12:00 ` Arjan van de Ven 2006-09-25 13:07 ` Willy Tarreau 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Arjan van de Ven @ 2006-09-25 12:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Willy Tarreau; +Cc: Linus Torvalds, Linux Kernel Mailing List On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 06:40 +0200, Willy Tarreau wrote: > do a few months back. After all the fuss about binary-only modules > incompatibility with GPLv2, I wanted to change the license of haproxy > to explicitly permit external binary-only code to be linked with it. LGPL is then a logical and commonly accepted choice for a license ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: An Ode to GPLv2 (was Re: GPLv3 Position Statement) 2006-09-25 12:00 ` Arjan van de Ven @ 2006-09-25 13:07 ` Willy Tarreau 2006-09-28 0:12 ` H. Peter Anvin 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Willy Tarreau @ 2006-09-25 13:07 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arjan van de Ven; +Cc: Linus Torvalds, Linux Kernel Mailing List On Mon, Sep 25, 2006 at 02:00:05PM +0200, Arjan van de Ven wrote: > On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 06:40 +0200, Willy Tarreau wrote: > > do a few months back. After all the fuss about binary-only modules > > incompatibility with GPLv2, I wanted to change the license of haproxy > > to explicitly permit external binary-only code to be linked with it. > > LGPL is then a logical and commonly accepted choice for a license Not exactly, because I don't want people to include interesting parts of my code into their binary-only programs. I just want to allow people to link binary-only modules with my program. However, programs that are already GPLv2 are welcome to steal part of my code. Regards, Willy ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: An Ode to GPLv2 (was Re: GPLv3 Position Statement) 2006-09-25 13:07 ` Willy Tarreau @ 2006-09-28 0:12 ` H. Peter Anvin 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: H. Peter Anvin @ 2006-09-28 0:12 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Willy Tarreau; +Cc: Arjan van de Ven, Linus Torvalds, Linux Kernel Mailing List Willy Tarreau wrote: > On Mon, Sep 25, 2006 at 02:00:05PM +0200, Arjan van de Ven wrote: >> On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 06:40 +0200, Willy Tarreau wrote: >>> do a few months back. After all the fuss about binary-only modules >>> incompatibility with GPLv2, I wanted to change the license of haproxy >>> to explicitly permit external binary-only code to be linked with it. >> LGPL is then a logical and commonly accepted choice for a license > > Not exactly, because I don't want people to include interesting parts > of my code into their binary-only programs. I just want to allow > people to link binary-only modules with my program. However, programs > that are already GPLv2 are welcome to steal part of my code. > That sounds like the LGPL to me... -hpa ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 16:15 GPLv3 Position Statement James Bottomley ` (5 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-25 2:44 ` An Ode to GPLv2 (was Re: GPLv3 Position Statement) Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-25 8:53 ` Michiel de Boer 2006-09-25 9:06 ` Russell King ` (5 more replies) 2006-09-25 15:30 ` Xavier Bestel 2006-09-27 1:11 ` Sergey Panov 8 siblings, 6 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Michiel de Boer @ 2006-09-25 8:53 UTC (permalink / raw) To: James Bottomley; +Cc: linux-kernel James Bottomley wrote: > Although this white paper was discussed amongst the full group of kernel > developers who participated in the informal poll, as you can expect from > Linux Kernel Developers, there was a wide crossection of opinion. This > document is really only for discussion, and represents only the views of > the people listed as authors (not the full voting pool). > > James > > ---------- > > The Dangers and Problems with GPLv3 > > > James E.J. Bottomley Mauro Carvalho Chehab > Thomas Gleixner Christoph Hellwig Dave Jones > Greg Kroah-Hartman Tony Luck Andrew Morton > Trond Myklebust David Woodhouse > > 15 September 2006 > Abstract > > This document is a position statement on the GNU General Public > License version 3 (in its current Draft 2 form) and its surrounding > process issued by some of the Maintainers of the Linux Kernel > speaking purely in their role as kernel maintainers. In no regard > should any opinion expressed herein be construed to represent the > views of any entities employing or being associated with any of the > authors. > > 1 Linux and GPLv2 > > Over the past decade, the Linux Operating System has shown itself to be far > and away the most successful Open Source operating system in history. > However, it certainly wasn't the first such open source operating system > and neither is it currently the only such operating system. We believe that > the pre-eminent success of Linux owes a great part to the dynamism and > diversity of its community of contributors, and that one of the catalysts > for creating and maintaining this community is the development contract as > expressed by GPLv2. > > ...<SNIP>.... > > 6 Conclusions > > The three key objections noted in section 5 are individually and > collectively sufficient reason for us to reject the current licence > proposal. However, we also note that the current draft with each of the > unacceptable provisions stripped out completely represents at best marginal > value over the tested and proven GPLv2. Therefore, as far as we are > concerned (and insofar as we control subsystems of the kernel) we cannot > foresee any drafts of GPLv3 coming out of the current drafting process that > would prove acceptable to us as a licence to move the current Linux Kernel > to. > > Further, since the FSF is proposing to shift all of its projects to > GPLv3 and apply pressure to every other GPL licensed project to move, we > foresee the release of GPLv3 portends the Balkanisation of the entire Open > Source Universe upon which we rely. This Balkanisation, which will be > manifested by distributions being forced to fork various packages in order > to get consistent licences, has the potential to inflict massive collateral > damage upon our entire ecosystem and jeopardise the very utility and > survival of Open Source. Since we can see nothing of sufficient value in > the current drafts of the GPLv3 to justify this terrible cost, we can only > assume the FSF is unaware of the current potential for disaster of the > course on which is has embarked. Therefore, we implore the FSF to > re-examine the consequences of its actions and to abandon the current GPLv3 > For what it's worth, i support RMS and his fight for free software fully. I support the current draft of the GPL version 3 and am very dissapointed it will not be adopted as is. IMHO, Linux has the power and influence to move mountains in the software industry, and shouldn't shy away from the opportunity to take moral responsibility when it arises. What is the stance of the developer team / kernel maintainers on DRM, Trusted Computing and software patents? Does the refusal to adopt GPLv3 as is mean that these two are more likely to emerge as supported functionality in the Linux kernel? Are there any moral boundaries Linux kernel developers will not cross concerning present and new U.S. laws on technology? Are they willing to put that in writing? Will Linux support HD-DVD and BluRay by being slightly more tolerant to closed source binary blobs? What about the already existant problems with the Content Scrambling System for DVD's? Finally, i hope that the wishes of the community of people that have only contributed to the kernel a few times but whose combined work may equal that of the core developers, are taken into account; as well as the wishes of the massive amount of users of the Linux kernel. How about a public poll? Regards, Michiel de Boer ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 8:53 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Michiel de Boer @ 2006-09-25 9:06 ` Russell King 2006-09-25 10:51 ` Neil Brown ` (4 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Russell King @ 2006-09-25 9:06 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Michiel de Boer; +Cc: James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Mon, Sep 25, 2006 at 10:53:14AM +0200, Michiel de Boer wrote: > For what it's worth, i support RMS and his fight for free software fully. > I support the current draft of the GPL version 3 and am very dissapointed > it will not be adopted as is. Let me stop you there. The kernel has had far too many contributors submit code under "GPLv2 only" to allow it to be universally relicensed as GPLv3, even if we _wanted_ to do that. So the question about adoption of GPLv3 is largely irrelevant for the kernel. If you think otherwise, please seek expert legal advice. -- Russell King Linux kernel 2.6 ARM Linux - http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/ maintainer of: 2.6 Serial core ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 8:53 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Michiel de Boer 2006-09-25 9:06 ` Russell King @ 2006-09-25 10:51 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-25 11:31 ` Alan Cox ` (2 more replies) 2006-09-25 11:11 ` Jan Engelhardt ` (3 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 3 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Neil Brown @ 2006-09-25 10:51 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Michiel de Boer; +Cc: James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Monday September 25, x@rebelhomicide.demon.nl wrote: > > For what it's worth, i support RMS and his fight for free software fully. > I support the current draft of the GPL version 3 and am very dissapointed > it will not be adopted as is. IMHO, Linux has the power and influence > to move mountains in the software industry, and shouldn't shy away from > the opportunity to take moral responsibility when it arises. I think that would be against the character of Linux. Linux has always been primarily about technology and community rather than freedom. Doing something to improve the technology or enable the community would be very in-character. Doing something in the name of freedom would not. Is that a reasonable position to take? Well, maybe. There are (at least) two ways to change unpleasant behaviour in others. One is through legislation. The other is through making the pleasant behaviour more attractive. Legislation is short term, but makes things black-and-white (or, in the case of grey areas, very expensive). Rewarding good behaviour is a much slower process, but deals with gray areas much more effectively. I think it is clear that we need a balance. The 'legislation' of GPLv2 plus the economic benefit of hundreds of developers have been an effective 2-prong attack to encourage people to share their software. This has been self re-enforcing. The more people see the benefit, the more people seem to get involved. So Linux has done a lot for freedom by focussing on technology. So the question is: has the balance swung far enough the wrong way to make a change in legislation necessary? The 'DRM' provision of the proposed GPLv3 seem to be being driven by 1 company - Tivo. Yes, what they are doing is against our spirit of freedom. But is it enough to justify changing the legislation? Or would that be 'the tail wagging the dog'?? The 'patent' provisions are - to me - more defensible than the DRM provisions (fewer grey areas). But are they an actual problem, or just a potential problem? The GPLv2 was written based on experience of people taking code and giving nothing back. Based on quite a lot of (unpleasant) experience, a very effective measure was developed to combat it. Do we have the same amount of experience with the problems that the GPLv3 is supposed to fix? If not, fixing now might be a bit premature and may lead to unwanted side effects. But maybe I am just misinformed. Maybe there are dozens of different manufacturers making devices that use DRM to prohibit freedom despite using GPL code, and maybe there are hundreds of submarine patents owned by distributors of GPL code and embodied in that code that the owners are going to start suing us overs.... Is there a list of these somewhere? > > What is the stance of the developer team / kernel maintainers on DRM, While I cannot speak for other developers (and sometimes have trouble speaking for myself), one stance I have often heard is that DRM is simply a tool - one that is largely based on cryptography which is just another tool. They can have good uses and bad uses just like the TCP/IP stack (think 'spam'). So code to implement then would (if of suitable quality) be allowed into the kernel. If you want to make DRM illegal, speak to your member-of-parliament, not your code developers. > Trusted Computing and software patents? Does the refusal to adopt GPLv3 as > is mean that these two are more likely to emerge as supported functionality > in the Linux kernel? Are there any moral boundaries Linux kernel developers > will not cross concerning present and new U.S. laws on technology? Are they > willing to put that in writing? Will Linux support HD-DVD and BluRay by > being slightly more tolerant to closed source binary blobs? What about > the already existant problems with the Content Scrambling System for > DVD's? Tolerance of binary blogs seems to be steadily dropping. As far as I can tell, the DVD-CSS is purely a legal issue today - the technical issues are solved (I can watch any-region on my Linux computer, and in Australia, the law requires that all DVD players must ignore region encoding as it is an anti-competitive practice). How HD-DVD and BluRay will work on Linux is yet to be seen, but I seriously doubt that anything in the GPLvX would have much effect on the outcome. The greater effect would come from people writing to their congress-person and voting with their wallet.... or just reverse-engineering the technology:-) > > Finally, i hope that the wishes of the community of people that have only > contributed to the kernel a few times but whose combined work may equal that > of the core developers, are taken into account; as well as the wishes of > the massive amount of users of the Linux kernel. This isn't about anyone's wishes. The kernel is GPLv2 only and that is not going to change - arguably is cannot change. This is about a group of developers giving an opinion. If others agree, it might become an argument that the FSF will choose to allow to affect their policy making (rather than thinking it is just Linus raving as usual). If no-one agrees, it will remain the opinion of a few, with all the lack of force that implies. > > How about a public poll? We've all see the sort of politician that get into government on the back of a public poll... Do you really think a public poll would provide a useful result :-) NeilBrown ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 10:51 ` Neil Brown @ 2006-09-25 11:31 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-25 16:10 ` Thomas Gleixner 2006-09-25 14:27 ` Lee Revell 2006-09-25 19:46 ` Jeff Garzik 2 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Alan Cox @ 2006-09-25 11:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Neil Brown; +Cc: Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Ar Llu, 2006-09-25 am 20:51 +1000, ysgrifennodd Neil Brown: > The 'DRM' provision of the proposed GPLv3 seem to be being driven by 1 > company - Tivo. Yes, what they are doing is against our spirit of Actually quite a few companies have done this, and in some cases have been involved in out of court settlements over that kind of abuse. Let's be clear about this. The GPLv2 covers the scripts etc for installation. The DRM keys are probably covered, and out of court settlements lend weight to that. It has always been my publically stated position that I reserve the right to sue anyone who uses my code and locks it away with keys. The GPLv3 rewords it in an attempt to be clearer but also I think rather more over-reaching. It's not clear what for example happens with a rented device containing GPL software but with DRM on the hardware. Thats quite different to owned hardware. GPLv2 leaves it open for the courts to make a sensible decision per case, GPLv3 tries to define it in advance and its very very hard to define correctly. Alan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 11:31 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-09-25 16:10 ` Thomas Gleixner 2006-09-29 10:15 ` Helge Hafting 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Thomas Gleixner @ 2006-09-25 16:10 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Alan Cox; +Cc: Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 12:31 +0100, Alan Cox wrote: > The GPLv3 rewords it in an attempt to be clearer but also I think rather > more over-reaching. It's not clear what for example happens with a > rented device containing GPL software but with DRM on the hardware. > Thats quite different to owned hardware. GPLv2 leaves it open for the > courts to make a sensible decision per case, GPLv3 tries to define it in > advance and its very very hard to define correctly. Also the prevention of running modified versions is not only caused by economic interests and business models. There are also scenarios where it is simply necessary: - The liability for damages, where the manufacturer of a device might be responsible in case of damage when he abandoned the prevention. This applies to medical devices as well as to lasers, machine tools and many more. Device manufacturers can not necessarily escape such liabilities as it might be considered grossly negligent to hand out the prevention key, even if the user signed an exemption from liability. - Regulations to prevent unauthorized access to radio frequencies, which is what concerns e.g. cellphone manufacturers. - ... An ultimate definition of acceptable and unacceptable usage scenarios is simply not possible due to the complexity of the problem. Any attempt to create a definition will lead to loopholes and grey areas. Further it will compulsory exclude acceptable usage scenarios. A simple loophole example was brought up in the discussion already: Technical limitations which do not allow modification at all, e.g. ROMs, ASICs are apparently considered as a valid usage scenario, but it also allows in consequence the circumvention of the intended lock down protection by simple technical means, e.g. ROM based software cartridges. If you knit narrower meshes, you create more holes. This is not only true for knitgoods, it's also a well known problem of legal systems. tglx ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 16:10 ` Thomas Gleixner @ 2006-09-29 10:15 ` Helge Hafting 2006-09-29 11:07 ` Alan Cox ` (4 more replies) 0 siblings, 5 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Helge Hafting @ 2006-09-29 10:15 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tglx; +Cc: Alan Cox, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Thomas Gleixner wrote: > On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 12:31 +0100, Alan Cox wrote: > >> The GPLv3 rewords it in an attempt to be clearer but also I think rather >> more over-reaching. It's not clear what for example happens with a >> rented device containing GPL software but with DRM on the hardware. >> Thats quite different to owned hardware. GPLv2 leaves it open for the >> courts to make a sensible decision per case, GPLv3 tries to define it in >> advance and its very very hard to define correctly. >> > > Also the prevention of running modified versions is not only caused by > economic interests and business models. There are also scenarios where > it is simply necessary: > > - The liability for damages, where the manufacturer of a device might > be responsible in case of damage when he abandoned the prevention. This > applies to medical devices as well as to lasers, machine tools and many > more. Device manufacturers can not necessarily escape such liabilities > as it might be considered grossly negligent to hand out the prevention > key, even if the user signed an exemption from liability. > This seems silly to me. Sure, lasers and medical equipment is dangerous if used wrong. When such equipment is controlled by software, then changing that software brings huge responsibility. But it shouldn't be made impossible. They can provide the key, with the warning that _using_ it means you are on your own and take all responsibility. I can take the covers off a cd player and let the laser shine into the room. Nothing prevents me from doing that, it isn't welded shut or anything. And it might be useful if I ever need a laser beam. Of course I am then responsible if I take someone's eye out. CD players have warning labels about this. And the same can be done for the keys to dangerous software. > - Regulations to prevent unauthorized access to radio frequencies, which > is what concerns e.g. cellphone manufacturers. > Unauthorized use is illegal and easy enough to track down. No special protection is needed. And it cannot be enforced by making the phones har to modify - any radio amateur knows how to build from scratch a transmitter to jam the GSM bands if he should be inclined to do so. Anyone can look this up in books too. Helge Hafting ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 10:15 ` Helge Hafting @ 2006-09-29 11:07 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-29 14:02 ` Stephen Clark ` (3 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Alan Cox @ 2006-09-29 11:07 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Helge Hafting Cc: tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Ar Gwe, 2006-09-29 am 12:15 +0200, ysgrifennodd Helge Hafting: > This seems silly to me. Sure, lasers and medical equipment is > dangerous if used wrong. When such equipment is > controlled by software, then changing that software brings > huge responsibility. But it shouldn't be made impossible. You will note that large corporations like telcos routinely push for such legislation and rules to increase the burdens on smaller companies and prevent competition. > > - Regulations to prevent unauthorized access to radio frequencies, which > > is what concerns e.g. cellphone manufacturers. > > > Unauthorized use is illegal and easy enough to track down. > No special protection is needed. And it cannot be enforced > by making the phones har to modify - any radio amateur knows Indeed - the regulations exist so that the state can control who makes phones, ensure they contain the GSM crypto backdoors and don't support additional voice scrambling or call relay type onion routing etc. Alan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 10:15 ` Helge Hafting 2006-09-29 11:07 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-09-29 14:02 ` Stephen Clark 2006-09-29 16:51 ` Linus Torvalds ` (2 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Stephen Clark @ 2006-09-29 14:02 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Helge Hafting Cc: tglx, Alan Cox, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Helge Hafting wrote: >Thomas Gleixner wrote: > > >>On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 12:31 +0100, Alan Cox wrote: >> >> >> >>>The GPLv3 rewords it in an attempt to be clearer but also I think rather >>>more over-reaching. It's not clear what for example happens with a >>>rented device containing GPL software but with DRM on the hardware. >>>Thats quite different to owned hardware. GPLv2 leaves it open for the >>>courts to make a sensible decision per case, GPLv3 tries to define it in >>>advance and its very very hard to define correctly. >>> >>> >>> >>Also the prevention of running modified versions is not only caused by >>economic interests and business models. There are also scenarios where >>it is simply necessary: >> >>- The liability for damages, where the manufacturer of a device might >>be responsible in case of damage when he abandoned the prevention. This >>applies to medical devices as well as to lasers, machine tools and many >>more. Device manufacturers can not necessarily escape such liabilities >>as it might be considered grossly negligent to hand out the prevention >>key, even if the user signed an exemption from liability. >> >> >> >This seems silly to me. Sure, lasers and medical equipment is >dangerous if used wrong. When such equipment is >controlled by software, then changing that software brings >huge responsibility. But it shouldn't be made impossible. > >They can provide the key, with the warning that _using_ it >means you are on your own and take all responsibility. > >I can take the covers off a cd player and let the laser >shine into the room. Nothing prevents me from doing >that, it isn't welded shut or anything. And it might >be useful if I ever need a laser beam. Of course I am >then responsible if I take someone's eye out. CD players >have warning labels about this. And the same can be done >for the keys to dangerous software. > > >>- Regulations to prevent unauthorized access to radio frequencies, which >>is what concerns e.g. cellphone manufacturers. >> >> >> >Unauthorized use is illegal and easy enough to track down. >No special protection is needed. And it cannot be enforced >by making the phones har to modify - any radio amateur knows >how to build from scratch a transmitter to jam the GSM bands >if he should be inclined to do so. Anyone can look this up in >books too. > >Helge Hafting >- >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/ > > > Amen! -- "They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Ben Franklin) "The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." (Thomas Jefferson) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 10:15 ` Helge Hafting 2006-09-29 11:07 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-29 14:02 ` Stephen Clark @ 2006-09-29 16:51 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 17:47 ` Alan Cox 2006-10-02 8:46 ` Helge Hafting 2006-09-29 19:43 ` jdow 2006-09-30 18:38 ` Thomas Gleixner 4 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 16:51 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Helge Hafting Cc: tglx, Alan Cox, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Helge Hafting wrote: > > This seems silly to me. Sure, lasers and medical equipment is > dangerous if used wrong. When such equipment is > controlled by software, then changing that software brings > huge responsibility. But it shouldn't be made impossible. It may be "silly", but hey, it's often a law. Also, even if it wasn't about laws, there is a very valid argument that you should be able to be silly. There's a reason people don't get locked up in prisons just for being silly or crazy - sometimes something that seems silly may turn out to be a great idea. And people seem to totally ignore that there is no correct answer to "who may do software updates?". People rant and rave about companies that stop _you_ from making software updates, but then they ignore the fact that this also stops truly bad people from doing it behind your back. Quite frankly, in many situations, I'd sure as hell be sure that any random person with physical access to a machine (even if it was mine, and even if I'm _one_ of them) could not just upgrade a piece of software. Sometimes you can make those protections yourself (ie you add passwords, and lock down the hardware - think of any University student computer center or a library or something), but what a lot of people seem to totally ignore is that often it's a hell of a lot more convenient for _everybody_ if the vendor just does it. And no, the answer is not "just give the password to people who buy the hardware". That requires individualized passwords, probably on a per-machine basis. That's often simply not _practical_, or is just much more expensive. It's quite natural for a vendor in this kind of situation to just have one very secret private key per model or something like that. In other words, these secret keys that people rant against JUST MAKE SENSE. Trying to outlaw the technology is idiotic, and shortsighted. If you don't want a machine that is locked down, just don't buy it. It's that simple. But don't try to take the right away from others to buy that kind of convenience. And yes, Tivo is exactly such a situation. It's damn convenient. I've got two Tivo's myself (and yes - I actually paid full price for them. I was given one of the original ones, but that's long since scrapped, and even that one I paid the subscription fee myself). But you don't have to buy them. You can build your own at any time, and it will probably be more powerful. So people are trying to claim that something is "wrong", even though it clearly is. The people arguing for "freedom" are totally ignoring my freedom to buy stuff that is convenient, and ignore real concerns where things like TPM etc actually can make a lot of sense. Can it be used for bad things? Sure. Knives are dangerous too, but that doesn't make them "wrong" or something you shouldn't allow. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 16:51 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 17:47 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-29 17:49 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-10-02 8:46 ` Helge Hafting 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Alan Cox @ 2006-09-29 17:47 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Ar Gwe, 2006-09-29 am 09:51 -0700, ysgrifennodd Linus Torvalds: > If you don't want a machine that is locked down, just don't buy it. It's > that simple. But don't try to take the right away from others to buy that > kind of convenience. That cuts both ways "If you don't want to use all this handy free code then don't lock your system down or go use OpenBSD" Alan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 17:47 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-09-29 17:49 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 18:17 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 18:26 ` Alan Cox 0 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 17:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Alan Cox Cc: Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Alan Cox wrote: > > That cuts both ways > > "If you don't want to use all this handy free code then don't lock your > system down or go use OpenBSD" That's a fallacious argument for two reasons: - the GPLv2 allows usage in any circumstances except the geographical limitation that can be forced on it by other laws. No serious lawyer I have ever met is even ambiguous about this. There's just no question - people may not be happy about it, and iirc the FSF at some point tried to claim somethign else, but this really isn't all that controversial. So the whole "If you don't want to use all this handy free code" argument is simply WRONG. It's based on a premise that just isn't true. All that handy free code is perfectly usable for things like a secure terminal or something else that doesn't allow you to change its behaviour because of some load-time consistency check. You cannot make a logical argument that as it's axiom takes something that is patently false. It may still be "logically consistent", but it has no _relevance_, since it has nothing to do with reality. - It tries to equate the word "free" (which means so many things that it almost lacks meaning) with "not able to authenticate". Which is just one of hundreds of ways to read it, and it is extremely irritating how the FSF thinks that _its_ definition of the word free somehow trumps everybody elses. We already had that discussion ten years ago, and it's why people who want to be clear in their speaking (and thinking) use the term "Open Source". Because the OSI rules generally speak about concrete things that mean only one thing, which means that they actually have a well-defined _meaning_ in any discussion between two parties. A lot of people seem to think that the problem with "free" was just the confusion between "no cost" and "freedom". Those people seemed to never really understand an even deeper problem in the whole FSF language use. In other words: anybody who wants to have a logical argument about the real world needs to start with (a) acknowledging facts and (b) avoid using words that may mean something else to the other side. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 17:49 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 18:17 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 18:26 ` Alan Cox 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 18:17 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Alan Cox Cc: Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > - the GPLv2 allows usage in any circumstances except the geographical > limitation that can be forced on it by other laws. No serious lawyer I > have ever met is even ambiguous about this. There's just no question - > people may not be happy about it, and iirc the FSF at some point tried > to claim somethign else, but this really isn't all that controversial. Btw, clearly the GPLv2 requirements do say that the use may have to be done certain ways. For example, if you actually embed keys in the binary itself, that almost certainly means that they keys are part of the source, and as such you need to make the keys available through other means and rely on the "mere aggregation" clause. The same thing goes for things like signed images. It you sign an individual binary, it can be argued that the private key was part of the build process. It's really a pretty weak argument, but the whole point is made moot by the fact that you don't actually _need_ any keys: you can just control the bootloader instead. That one not a derived work, and is quite often even on a totally different media: flash vs disk or similar. And once you have it do a consistency check by just verifying the SHA1 of the aggregate media separately, you don't actually have any keys to release, because there simply _is_ no key that actually covers any GPLv2'd code. You can try to take it to some (il)logical extreme, and ask yourself whether just even holding a 128-bit hash is a "derived work"? But I not only think you'd be laughed out of court on that one if you claimed it was, I _really_ don't think you want to go there anyway. Because if you think it is, then you're violating copyright law every time you look up a CD in CDDB/fredb/whatever-it's-called-now, or any number of other things. You don't want to try to strengthen copyrights to insane levels (you'd also be getting rid of "fair use" if you do). In other words, if you _really_ care about "freedom" (just about any kind) you should be _damn_ careful not to try to extend those copyright claims of "derived work" too far. Because quite frankly, YOU are going to lose on that one, and the RIAA is going to laugh at your sorry ass for helping them prove their nonexistent point, and you would end up losing a lot more "freedoms" than the ones you thought you were fighting for. So the point is, there's no reasonable disagreement what-so-ever that you can use GPLv2 code for anything you damn well want, including secure lock-down. I think the FSF has even said so in public. You have to release _source_code_, but the GPLv2 never controlled the environment it was used in. Of course, a lot of people who have played games with these kinds of issues also did other things very wrong. So a number of vendors that did something fishy have gotten nailed for real copyright infringement due to the _other_ things they did. [ I'd also not be surprised if companies would decide to settle just to avoid a lawsuit - especially one that made it clear that they were sleazy even if they weren't perhaps actually doing anything actively illegal. So there's a damn good reason why companies often don't want to even toe _close_ to the line, and we should be happy about that. But we shouldn't try to claim rules that simply never existed. ] Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 17:49 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 18:17 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 18:26 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-29 18:27 ` Linus Torvalds 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Alan Cox @ 2006-09-29 18:26 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Ar Gwe, 2006-09-29 am 10:49 -0700, ysgrifennodd Linus Torvalds: > All that handy free code is perfectly usable for things like a secure > terminal or something else that doesn't allow you to change its > behaviour because of some load-time consistency check. If you provide the neccessary information so the user can replace it and it still works. Even with GPLv2. Thats the information I was given, thats the interpretation that the lawyers I've talked to consider reasonable and likely court enforcable, thats the interpretation that has been accepted several times in out of court GPL violation settlements. Alan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 18:26 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-09-29 18:27 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 18:40 ` Linus Torvalds 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 18:27 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Alan Cox Cc: Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Alan Cox wrote: > > thats the interpretation that has been accepted several times in out of > court GPL violation settlements. I think you can push that angle, and a lot of the time it will work in practice - because the companies involved are really not "evil", and most often they simply want to avoid any trouble. At the same time, in many cases the settlements seem to be very much about real issues, like not actually following the GPLv2 (giving no credit, not mentioning the license, not making sources available). Rather than about any imagined or real lock-down issues. There's certainly a _correlation_ between "locking down" and "being sleazy in general", but I don't think it's necessarily a causal relationship. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 18:27 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 18:40 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 19:59 ` alan ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 18:40 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Alan Cox Cc: Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > I think you can push that angle, and a lot of the time it will work in > practice - because the companies involved are really not "evil", and most > often they simply want to avoid any trouble. Btw, I'd also like to say that not only am I not a lawyer, I also think that it's perfectly fine for people to disagree with me and decide to sue somebody they really really dislike. I'm not giving legal advice, and am just stating my own standpoint. I think people (especially in the US) tend to be way too lawsuit-happy anyway, but I'm in no way trying to discourage people who feel they want to assert rights that I personally don't think _I_ have. People differ in their opinions of the rights they hold. That's ok. The way things _really_ get decided is not on the kernel mailing list, or even by asking a lawyer, but by people who decided that some company or other just simply crossed the line and did something illegal. My opinion simply doesn't _matter_ in that sense. For example, when I say that I think it would be totally insane to think that a 128-bit hash of a binary is a "derived work", I say that as a concerned citizen. I think a world where real lawyers would say that would be a _horrible_ world. And I don't think it makes sense. But sadly, until I'm elected(*) life-time President and King of the World, what I think doesn't actually change anything. Linus (*) Hah. Who do I think I'm kidding? The revolution will be bloody and brutal, and you're not going to get the choice to "elect" me except in the history books written by yours truly. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 18:40 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 19:59 ` alan 2006-09-29 20:06 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 21:25 ` Theodore Tso 2006-09-29 21:29 ` Alan Cox 2 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: alan @ 2006-09-29 19:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Alan Cox, Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > (*) Hah. Who do I think I'm kidding? The revolution will be bloody and > brutal, and you're not going to get the choice to "elect" me except in the > history books written by yours truly. Wow. You have been living in Portland too long. ]:> -- "I will not buy this lutefisk, it is scratched." ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 19:59 ` alan @ 2006-09-29 20:06 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 20:21 ` alan 2006-09-29 20:51 ` alan 0 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 20:06 UTC (permalink / raw) To: alan Cc: Alan Cox, Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, alan wrote: > > On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > (*) Hah. Who do I think I'm kidding? The revolution will be bloody and > > brutal, and you're not going to get the choice to "elect" me except in the > > history books written by yours truly. > > Wow. You have been living in Portland too long. ]:> Is there some Portland subculture that I should be aware of? Inquiring minds want to know. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 20:06 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 20:21 ` alan 2006-09-29 20:32 ` alan 2006-09-29 21:11 ` Chris Smith 2006-09-29 20:51 ` alan 1 sibling, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: alan @ 2006-09-29 20:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Alan Cox, Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, alan wrote: >> >> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: >> >>> (*) Hah. Who do I think I'm kidding? The revolution will be bloody and >>> brutal, and you're not going to get the choice to "elect" me except in the >>> history books written by yours truly. >> >> Wow. You have been living in Portland too long. ]:> > > Is there some Portland subculture that I should be aware of? > > Inquiring minds want to know. That would be telling. Here are a few clues to the secret handshake that is Portland... http://www.mondocroquet.com/ http://portland.cacophony.org/ http://www.orycon.org/orycon28/ http://communique.portland.or.us/02/12/santanarchy_now And that is only the stuff I can mention in public. Portland has even darker secrets. -- "Oh, Joel Miller, you've just found the marble in the oatmeal. You're a lucky, lucky, lucky little boy. 'Cause you know why? You get to drink from... the FIRE HOOOOOSE!" - The Stanley Spudoski guide to mailing list administration ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 20:21 ` alan @ 2006-09-29 20:32 ` alan 2006-09-29 23:12 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-29 21:11 ` Chris Smith 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: alan @ 2006-09-29 20:32 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Alan Cox, Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, alan wrote: > On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > >> >> >> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, alan wrote: >>> >>> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: >>> >>>> (*) Hah. Who do I think I'm kidding? The revolution will be bloody and >>>> brutal, and you're not going to get the choice to "elect" me except in >>>> the >>>> history books written by yours truly. >>> >>> Wow. You have been living in Portland too long. ]:> >> >> Is there some Portland subculture that I should be aware of? >> >> Inquiring minds want to know. > > That would be telling. > > Here are a few clues to the secret handshake that is Portland... > > http://www.mondocroquet.com/ > http://portland.cacophony.org/ > http://www.orycon.org/orycon28/ > http://communique.portland.or.us/02/12/santanarchy_now Not to mention: http://www.hplfilmfestival.com/ And worst of all: http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ -- "Oh, Joel Miller, you've just found the marble in the oatmeal. You're a lucky, lucky, lucky little boy. 'Cause you know why? You get to drink from... the FIRE HOOOOOSE!" - The Stanley Spudoski guide to mailing list administration ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 20:32 ` alan @ 2006-09-29 23:12 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-29 23:25 ` Randy Dunlap 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-29 23:12 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel On Friday 29 September 2006 16:32, alan wrote: >On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, alan wrote: >> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: >>> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, alan wrote: >>>> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: >>>>> (*) Hah. Who do I think I'm kidding? The revolution will be bloody >>>>> and brutal, and you're not going to get the choice to "elect" me >>>>> except in the >>>>> history books written by yours truly. >>>> >>>> Wow. You have been living in Portland too long. ]:> >>> >>> Is there some Portland subculture that I should be aware of? >>> >>> Inquiring minds want to know. >> >> That would be telling. >> >> Here are a few clues to the secret handshake that is Portland... >> >> http://www.mondocroquet.com/ >> http://portland.cacophony.org/ >> http://www.orycon.org/orycon28/ >> http://communique.portland.or.us/02/12/santanarchy_now > >Not to mention: >http://www.hplfilmfestival.com/ > >And worst of all: > >http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ I take it that much of this indoor activity is caused by the relative lack of sufficient umbrellas in Portland? :-) -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 23:12 ` Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-29 23:25 ` Randy Dunlap 2006-09-29 23:53 ` Gene Heskett 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Randy Dunlap @ 2006-09-29 23:25 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Gene Heskett; +Cc: linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 19:12:15 -0400 Gene Heskett wrote: > On Friday 29 September 2006 16:32, alan wrote: > >On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, alan wrote: > >> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > >>> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, alan wrote: > >>>> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > >>>>> (*) Hah. Who do I think I'm kidding? The revolution will be bloody > >>>>> and brutal, and you're not going to get the choice to "elect" me > >>>>> except in the > >>>>> history books written by yours truly. > >>>> > >>>> Wow. You have been living in Portland too long. ]:> > >>> > >>> Is there some Portland subculture that I should be aware of? > >>> > >>> Inquiring minds want to know. > >> > >> That would be telling. > >> > >> Here are a few clues to the secret handshake that is Portland... > >> > >> http://www.mondocroquet.com/ > >> http://portland.cacophony.org/ > >> http://www.orycon.org/orycon28/ > >> http://communique.portland.or.us/02/12/santanarchy_now > > > >Not to mention: > >http://www.hplfilmfestival.com/ > > > >And worst of all: > > > >http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ > > I take it that much of this indoor activity is caused by the relative lack > of sufficient umbrellas in Portland? what's an umbrella? --- ~Randy GPL v0: http://www.glacierparkinc.com/GlacierParkLodge.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 23:25 ` Randy Dunlap @ 2006-09-29 23:53 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-30 0:31 ` Vadim Lobanov 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-29 23:53 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel On Friday 29 September 2006 19:25, Randy Dunlap wrote: >On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 19:12:15 -0400 Gene Heskett wrote: >> On Friday 29 September 2006 16:32, alan wrote: >> >On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, alan wrote: >> >> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: >> >>> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, alan wrote: >> >>>> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: >> >>>>> (*) Hah. Who do I think I'm kidding? The revolution will be >> >>>>> bloody and brutal, and you're not going to get the choice to >> >>>>> "elect" me except in the >> >>>>> history books written by yours truly. >> >>>> >> >>>> Wow. You have been living in Portland too long. ]:> >> >>> >> >>> Is there some Portland subculture that I should be aware of? >> >>> >> >>> Inquiring minds want to know. >> >> >> >> That would be telling. >> >> >> >> Here are a few clues to the secret handshake that is Portland... >> >> >> >> http://www.mondocroquet.com/ >> >> http://portland.cacophony.org/ >> >> http://www.orycon.org/orycon28/ >> >> http://communique.portland.or.us/02/12/santanarchy_now >> > >> >Not to mention: >> >http://www.hplfilmfestival.com/ >> > >> >And worst of all: >> > >> >http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ >> >> I take it that much of this indoor activity is caused by the relative >> lack of sufficient umbrellas in Portland? > >what's an umbrella? See what I mean folks? Underpriviledged is what Portlanders are. I mean Shirley Seattle doesn't hog all the rain on the left coast. However, to be fair, the one time I flew in and out of Portland, to see an Aunt in Salem I knew I'd never see again if I didn't do it then, it didn't outright rain either time. But Salem, an hour south, got about a foot in that same 12 days. Last of June, the road to Crater Lake was opened the day before we were there, and there was still around 15 feet of snow up there in places. > >--- >~Randy >GPL v0: http://www.glacierparkinc.com/GlacierParkLodge.htm But does it have a wifi for your puter? :-) -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 23:53 ` Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-30 0:31 ` Vadim Lobanov 2006-09-30 3:36 ` Gene Heskett 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Vadim Lobanov @ 2006-09-30 0:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Gene Heskett; +Cc: linux-kernel On Friday 29 September 2006 16:53, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Friday 29 September 2006 19:25, Randy Dunlap wrote: > >On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 19:12:15 -0400 Gene Heskett wrote: > >> On Friday 29 September 2006 16:32, alan wrote: > >> >Not to mention: > >> >http://www.hplfilmfestival.com/ > >> > > >> >And worst of all: > >> > > >> >http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ > >> > >> I take it that much of this indoor activity is caused by the relative > >> lack of sufficient umbrellas in Portland? > > > >what's an umbrella? > > See what I mean folks? Underpriviledged is what Portlanders are. I mean > Shirley Seattle doesn't hog all the rain on the left coast. No, not at all. It's simply that we Seattle-ites just whine about it the loudest. It's nothing more than a ploy to scare away the tourists. :) > However, to be fair, the one time I flew in and out of Portland, to see an > Aunt in Salem I knew I'd never see again if I didn't do it then, it didn't > outright rain either time. But Salem, an hour south, got about a foot in > that same 12 days. Last of June, the road to Crater Lake was opened the > day before we were there, and there was still around 15 feet of snow up > there in places. > > >--- > >~Randy > >GPL v0: http://www.glacierparkinc.com/GlacierParkLodge.htm > > But does it have a wifi for your puter? :-) -- Vadim Lobanov ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-30 0:31 ` Vadim Lobanov @ 2006-09-30 3:36 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-30 4:37 ` Vadim Lobanov 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-30 3:36 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel On Friday 29 September 2006 20:31, Vadim Lobanov wrote: >On Friday 29 September 2006 16:53, Gene Heskett wrote: >> On Friday 29 September 2006 19:25, Randy Dunlap wrote: [...] >> >what's an umbrella? >> >> See what I mean folks? Underpriviledged is what Portlanders are. I >> mean Shirley Seattle doesn't hog all the rain on the left coast. > >No, not at all. It's simply that we Seattle-ites just whine about it the >loudest. It's nothing more than a ploy to scare away the tourists. :) You don't have to, the weather does that. The std joke question for anyone from a Northern CA market tv station who goes to Seattle to interview for a job at a larger market tv station is: Was it raining? And the answer is always yes. I never saw it fail. :) Reminds me of a fellow I worked with back in Iowa City, studying to be a lawyer (about 50 years ago) who spent most of WWII in London. In two years the sun came out for 3 days. He wears the scares from the sunburn he got to this day if he hasn't passed, he was about 20 years older than I, and I'm 72 next week. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-30 3:36 ` Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-30 4:37 ` Vadim Lobanov 2006-09-30 4:54 ` Randy Dunlap 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Vadim Lobanov @ 2006-09-30 4:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Gene Heskett; +Cc: linux-kernel On Friday 29 September 2006 20:36, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Friday 29 September 2006 20:31, Vadim Lobanov wrote: > >On Friday 29 September 2006 16:53, Gene Heskett wrote: > >> On Friday 29 September 2006 19:25, Randy Dunlap wrote: > > [...] > > >> >what's an umbrella? > >> > >> See what I mean folks? Underpriviledged is what Portlanders are. I > >> mean Shirley Seattle doesn't hog all the rain on the left coast. > > > >No, not at all. It's simply that we Seattle-ites just whine about it the > >loudest. It's nothing more than a ploy to scare away the tourists. :) > > You don't have to, the weather does that. The std joke question for anyone > from a Northern CA market tv station who goes to Seattle to interview for > a job at a larger market tv station is: Was it raining? And the answer > is always yes. I never saw it fail. :) Ah, our weather is honestly not all that bad. In fact, judging from the various sources out there, Seattle actually gets less rainfall overall than Portland. (ex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle,_Washington#Climate) The worst part is the 8-9 months of constantly-overcast and dreary weather in the fall, winter, and spring; but, to balance that out, our summers are very, very nice. And yes, we even get droughts every so often around here! :) > Reminds me of a fellow I worked with back in Iowa City, studying to be a > lawyer (about 50 years ago) who spent most of WWII in London. In two > years the sun came out for 3 days. He wears the scares from the sunburn > he got to this day if he hasn't passed, he was about 20 years older than > I, and I'm 72 next week. Yikes! No sun for that long? I couldn't do it. I'd probably go bonkers (or even more so...). -- Vadim Lobanov ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-30 4:37 ` Vadim Lobanov @ 2006-09-30 4:54 ` Randy Dunlap 2006-09-30 6:10 ` Vadim Lobanov 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Randy Dunlap @ 2006-09-30 4:54 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Vadim Lobanov; +Cc: Gene Heskett, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 21:37:27 -0700 Vadim Lobanov wrote: > > >No, not at all. It's simply that we Seattle-ites just whine about it the > > >loudest. It's nothing more than a ploy to scare away the tourists. :) > > > > You don't have to, the weather does that. The std joke question for anyone > > from a Northern CA market tv station who goes to Seattle to interview for > > a job at a larger market tv station is: Was it raining? And the answer > > is always yes. I never saw it fail. :) > > Ah, our weather is honestly not all that bad. In fact, judging from the > various sources out there, Seattle actually gets less rainfall overall than > Portland. (ex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle,_Washington#Climate) The > worst part is the 8-9 months of constantly-overcast and dreary weather in the > fall, winter, and spring; but, to balance that out, our summers are very, > very nice. And yes, we even get droughts every so often around here! :) Hey, you aren't supposed to tell people about the great summer weather out here... --- ~Randy ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-30 4:54 ` Randy Dunlap @ 2006-09-30 6:10 ` Vadim Lobanov 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Vadim Lobanov @ 2006-09-30 6:10 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Randy Dunlap; +Cc: Gene Heskett, linux-kernel On Friday 29 September 2006 21:54, Randy Dunlap wrote: > On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 21:37:27 -0700 Vadim Lobanov wrote: > > > >No, not at all. It's simply that we Seattle-ites just whine about it > > > > the loudest. It's nothing more than a ploy to scare away the > > > > tourists. :) > > > > > > You don't have to, the weather does that. The std joke question for > > > anyone from a Northern CA market tv station who goes to Seattle to > > > interview for a job at a larger market tv station is: Was it raining? > > > And the answer is always yes. I never saw it fail. :) > > > > Ah, our weather is honestly not all that bad. In fact, judging from the > > various sources out there, Seattle actually gets less rainfall overall > > than Portland. (ex. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle,_Washington#Climate) The worst part > > is the 8-9 months of constantly-overcast and dreary weather in the fall, > > winter, and spring; but, to balance that out, our summers are very, very > > nice. And yes, we even get droughts every so often around here! :) > > Hey, you aren't supposed to tell people about the great summer > weather out here... True, we shouldn't announce this particular little secret to the whole wide world, but I think it's alright to tell the people on this list about it. ;) After all, the only thing that could happen is that more kernel hackers decide to move here... and getting more smart neighbors like them, as a result, is never a bad thing! So does this mean that you live in the Pacific Northwest in general, or Seattle in particular? If so, I never knew. And speaking of, who else haunts this little corner of the world? David Miller is moving here, unless my mind is playing tricks on me; anybody else? > --- > ~Randy -- Vadim Lobanov ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 20:21 ` alan 2006-09-29 20:32 ` alan @ 2006-09-29 21:11 ` Chris Smith 2006-09-29 21:33 ` alan 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Chris Smith @ 2006-09-29 21:11 UTC (permalink / raw) To: alan Cc: Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel > And that is only the stuff I can mention in public. Portland has even darker secrets. Thankfully, you didn't mention http://www.portlandhumphash.org/php/index.php?title=Main_Page so at least that dart secret is safe. -- Christopher Smith Pursuer of knowledge ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 21:11 ` Chris Smith @ 2006-09-29 21:33 ` alan 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: alan @ 2006-09-29 21:33 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Chris Smith Cc: Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Chris Smith wrote: >> And that is only the stuff I can mention in public. Portland has even >> darker secrets. > > Thankfully, you didn't mention > http://www.portlandhumphash.org/php/index.php?title=Main_Page > so at least that dart secret is safe. I think that is a different GPL "position". -- "Oh, Joel Miller, you've just found the marble in the oatmeal. You're a lucky, lucky, lucky little boy. 'Cause you know why? You get to drink from... the FIRE HOOOOOSE!" - The Stanley Spudoski guide to mailing list administration ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 20:06 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 20:21 ` alan @ 2006-09-29 20:51 ` alan 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: alan @ 2006-09-29 20:51 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Alan Cox, Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, alan wrote: >> >> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: >> >>> (*) Hah. Who do I think I'm kidding? The revolution will be bloody and >>> brutal, and you're not going to get the choice to "elect" me except in the >>> history books written by yours truly. >> >> Wow. You have been living in Portland too long. ]:> > > Is there some Portland subculture that I should be aware of? > > Inquiring minds want to know. Some say the only subculture portland has is at: http://www.omsi.edu/visit/submarine/wq -- "Oh, Joel Miller, you've just found the marble in the oatmeal. You're a lucky, lucky, lucky little boy. 'Cause you know why? You get to drink from... the FIRE HOOOOOSE!" - The Stanley Spudoski guide to mailing list administration ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 18:40 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 19:59 ` alan @ 2006-09-29 21:25 ` Theodore Tso 2006-09-29 21:29 ` Alan Cox 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Theodore Tso @ 2006-09-29 21:25 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Alan Cox, Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel One of the things which I'm fond of pointing out is that all of the freedoms people would have to hack MacOS, especially MacOS 9, where all of the various "Mac Extensions" which changed and extended the UI of the Macintosh, would have completely disappeared if the FSF's idea of "derived works" was in fact the law of the land. That's because (a) Apple hated the fact that people dared to think that the UI has handed down on the stone tablets inscribed by Steve Jobs could be improved upon, and (b) the way those changes were made by patching jump tables so that code to extend the UI could be patched into the OS --- in effect, a dynamic link. Now, because Apple hated the fact that people dared to think they could improve on Apple's UI design, they frequently changed the jump table interfaces, forcing the people who wrote the "Mac Hacks" to follow a rapidly changing code stream --- much like what the Linux kernel does with its device driver interfaces. But Apple has *never* said that just because you dynamically link with MacOS, that instantly makes your MacOS a derived work, and so therefore as the copyright holder of MacOS, Apple could therefore have the right to control how, or even whether or not the Macintosh Extensions could ever exist. Thanks goodness, no sane court has ever ruled that the various Macintosh Extensions were a derived work, just because they lived in the same address space as MacOS and dynamically linked with MacOS, and in fact were **designed** only to work with MacOS, and very often used header files shipped by the Macintosh Programmer's Workbench. So don't be too quick to wish that the courts will use the FSF's pet definition of what derived works mean ---- you may find that in the end, you end up losing far more freedoms than you expect. - Ted ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 18:40 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 19:59 ` alan 2006-09-29 21:25 ` Theodore Tso @ 2006-09-29 21:29 ` Alan Cox 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Alan Cox @ 2006-09-29 21:29 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Helge Hafting, tglx, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Ar Gwe, 2006-09-29 am 11:40 -0700, ysgrifennodd Linus Torvalds: > For example, when I say that I think it would be totally insane to think > that a 128-bit hash of a binary is a "derived work", I would hope not, although thats the silly half of what some of the RIAA versus bittorrent sites is alleging. > be a _horrible_ world. And I don't think it makes sense. But sadly, until > I'm elected(*) life-time President and King of the World, what I think > doesn't actually change anything. Emperor of the World is a self electing position, the post is open after Emperor Norton passed on 8) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 16:51 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 17:47 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-10-02 8:46 ` Helge Hafting 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Helge Hafting @ 2006-10-02 8:46 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: tglx, Alan Cox, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Linus Torvalds wrote: > On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Helge Hafting wrote: > >> >> This seems silly to me. Sure, lasers and medical equipment is >> dangerous if used wrong. When such equipment is >> controlled by software, then changing that software brings >> huge responsibility. But it shouldn't be made impossible. >> > > It may be "silly", but hey, it's often a law. > The manufacturer is liable for damages if the product is dangerous as-is. If you modify the product in ways the documentation says you shouldn't, then it isn't their product anymore. It is _your_ product then, and now you are the one responsible for damages. A law against software modification just move the discussion to "for or against" that law. > Also, even if it wasn't about laws, there is a very valid argument that > you should be able to be silly. There's a reason people don't get locked > up in prisons just for being silly or crazy - sometimes something that > seems silly may turn out to be a great idea. > > And people seem to totally ignore that there is no correct answer to "who > may do software updates?". People rant and rave about companies that stop > _you_ from making software updates, but then they ignore the fact that > this also stops truly bad people from doing it behind your back. > And how would truly bad people modify any of my software? My car engine may explode if programmed with sufficiently stupid ignition timing and/or turbo mismanagement. Nothing prevent upgrades though, there are companies selling "chip upgrades" and so on. Now, this isn't open source, but the information isn't that hard to get either. Still, we don't see abuses. Just chip upgrades, that often voids the warranty. The car is secured by a lock - to which I have a key. That's all the security I need. My home devices mostly require precence to be reprogrammed, so no bad guys without my house keys. The PC is an exception of course. > Quite frankly, in many situations, I'd sure as hell be sure that any > random person with physical access to a machine (even if it was mine, and > even if I'm _one_ of them) could not just upgrade a piece of software. > I want to be silly and reprogram something. I should be able to be silly, but not be able to do this reprogramming? > Sometimes you can make those protections yourself (ie you add passwords, > and lock down the hardware - think of any University student computer > center or a library or something), but what a lot of people seem to > totally ignore is that often it's a hell of a lot more convenient for > _everybody_ if the vendor just does it. > Vendor upgrades are convenient, sure. That is not a reason for limiting us to vendor upgrades _only._ > And no, the answer is not "just give the password to people who buy the > hardware". That requires individualized passwords, probably on a > per-machine basis. That's often simply not _practical_, or is just much > A jumper needed for reprogramming limits reprogramming to someone who is physically present - i.e. the owner. Problem solved without passwords. > more expensive. It's quite natural for a vendor in this kind of situation > to just have one very secret private key per model or something like that. > History have showed, again and again, that such a "very secret" key will be broken, and that only have to be done once. Therefore, people run linux on gaming boxes that was supposed to be locked down. And we can watch DVDs on linux too. > In other words, these secret keys that people rant against JUST MAKE > SENSE. Trying to outlaw the technology is idiotic, and shortsighted. > Yes "very secret" keys makes sense. They are so useful, because someone nice will disassemble an upgrade and then publish the key. Then the hobbyists can do what they want, while the companies flasely believes they get what they want too. :-) Still, it'd be better if they didn't bother. Just add a sticker with "reprogramming voids the warranty and might kill you." and be done with it. > If you don't want a machine that is locked down, just don't buy it. It's > that simple. But don't try to take the right away from others to buy that > kind of convenience. > Seems to me that this "convenience" is only for monopolists trying to limit the usefulness of the device? Sure, I can refrain from buying some device, except that they don't usually document this kind of limitation until you suddenly runs into it. And of course this works the other way too. People may write software that explicitly forbids locking down. If device manufacturers don't like that, they are free to not use the code. And it is sometimes fun when they don't discover this until they have shipped the devices and gets forced to supply a key. ;-) > And yes, Tivo is exactly such a situation. It's damn convenient. I've got > two Tivo's myself (and yes - I actually paid full price for them. I was > given one of the original ones, but that's long since scrapped, and even > that one I paid the subscription fee myself). But you don't have to buy > them. You can build your own at any time, and it will probably be more > powerful. > > So people are trying to claim that something is "wrong", even though it > clearly is. The people arguing for "freedom" are totally ignoring my > freedom to buy stuff that is convenient, and ignore real concerns where > things like TPM etc actually can make a lot of sense. > > Can it be used for bad things? Sure. Knives are dangerous too, but that > doesn't make them "wrong" or something you shouldn't allow. > What is the convenience of a locked-down device? I agree it is nice if the manufacturer can upgrade it - a convenience for any device I won't bother with myself. But why should that prevent _me_ from reprogramming my device in a different way? I see no need for that at all. You can have one _and_ the other. Helge Hafting ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 10:15 ` Helge Hafting ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-29 16:51 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 19:43 ` jdow 2006-09-30 18:38 ` Thomas Gleixner 4 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: jdow @ 2006-09-29 19:43 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel From: "Helge Hafting" <helge.hafting@aitel.hist.no> > Thomas Gleixner wrote: >> On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 12:31 +0100, Alan Cox wrote: >> >>> The GPLv3 rewords it in an attempt to be clearer but also I think rather >>> more over-reaching. It's not clear what for example happens with a >>> rented device containing GPL software but with DRM on the hardware. >>> Thats quite different to owned hardware. GPLv2 leaves it open for the >>> courts to make a sensible decision per case, GPLv3 tries to define it in >>> advance and its very very hard to define correctly. >>> >> >> Also the prevention of running modified versions is not only caused by >> economic interests and business models. There are also scenarios where >> it is simply necessary: >> >> - The liability for damages, where the manufacturer of a device might >> be responsible in case of damage when he abandoned the prevention. This >> applies to medical devices as well as to lasers, machine tools and many >> more. Device manufacturers can not necessarily escape such liabilities >> as it might be considered grossly negligent to hand out the prevention >> key, even if the user signed an exemption from liability. >> > This seems silly to me. Sure, lasers and medical equipment is > dangerous if used wrong. When such equipment is > controlled by software, then changing that software brings > huge responsibility. But it shouldn't be made impossible. > > They can provide the key, with the warning that _using_ it > means you are on your own and take all responsibility. In some more rational parts of the world (presuming they exist evidence to the contrary) this approach might work. This requires a people and government that are rather libertarian with the people taking full responsibility for their own actions. Now, I live in the country that awarded a woman millions of dollars because she was stupid enough to put a hot container of coffee in her lap as she reached over to her purse to make change. Of course it spilled and scorched her in a "nasty place to be scorched." This is also the country that awarded two drunken idiots who decided to trim a hedge with a rotary lawn mower. They tried to pick it up by the skirts and lost their fingers to the spinning blades. They sued the manufacturer for allowing them to be stupid - and won. So the blunt answer is "Product Liability." > I can take the covers off a cd player and let the laser > shine into the room. Nothing prevents me from doing > that, it isn't welded shut or anything. And it might > be useful if I ever need a laser beam. Of course I am > then responsible if I take someone's eye out. CD players > have warning labels about this. And the same can be done > for the keys to dangerous software. Those warnings probably are not enough in a US court of law. But they are enough to discourage most idiots who do get blinded by their own stupidity from trying to sue. >> - Regulations to prevent unauthorized access to radio frequencies, which >> is what concerns e.g. cellphone manufacturers. >> > Unauthorized use is illegal and easy enough to track down. > No special protection is needed. And it cannot be enforced > by making the phones har to modify - any radio amateur knows > how to build from scratch a transmitter to jam the GSM bands > if he should be inclined to do so. Anyone can look this up in > books too. The bozo has to go through enough effort to build such a jammer that it'd (mostly) insulate the parts manufactures from liability. It's a little more work than pulling some CDROM screws and blinding people in the room as a result. (Yeah, I darned well know how little actual work is involved. But actual knowledge is also involved so it would be hard for that jammer to escape personal responsibility. Of course, there is the spark gap jammer.... Anecdotal evidence shows that the spark gap noise can motivate the Los Angeles FCC office to get off their lazy asses in a hurry, though.) {^_-} Joanne ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 10:15 ` Helge Hafting ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-29 19:43 ` jdow @ 2006-09-30 18:38 ` Thomas Gleixner 2006-09-30 20:49 ` Alan Cox 4 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Thomas Gleixner @ 2006-09-30 18:38 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Helge Hafting Cc: Alan Cox, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 2006-09-29 at 12:15 +0200, Helge Hafting wrote: > > - The liability for damages, where the manufacturer of a device might > > be responsible in case of damage when he abandoned the prevention. This > > applies to medical devices as well as to lasers, machine tools and many > > more. Device manufacturers can not necessarily escape such liabilities > > as it might be considered grossly negligent to hand out the prevention > > key, even if the user signed an exemption from liability. > > > This seems silly to me. Sure, lasers and medical equipment is > dangerous if used wrong. When such equipment is > controlled by software, then changing that software brings > huge responsibility. But it shouldn't be made impossible. > > They can provide the key, with the warning that _using_ it > means you are on your own and take all responsibility. This might be silly in your opinion, but it is simply the reality, especially in the US, but also in Europe we have an increasing madness in liability jurisdiction. Do you believe that any responsible corporate lawyer will buy your "with a warning" argument when he is aware of rulings stating the opposite ? I talked to very reasonable corporate lawyers about this and they provided enough prove, that I take this serious. Your argument is logical and should reflect common sense, but reality is different. If we could rely on common sense, we would not have this discussion at all. tglx ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-30 18:38 ` Thomas Gleixner @ 2006-09-30 20:49 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-30 20:38 ` Thomas Gleixner 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Alan Cox @ 2006-09-30 20:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tglx Cc: Helge Hafting, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Ar Sad, 2006-09-30 am 20:38 +0200, ysgrifennodd Thomas Gleixner: > This might be silly in your opinion, but it is simply the reality, > especially in the US, but also in Europe we have an increasing madness > in liability jurisdiction. Do you believe that any responsible corporate > lawyer will buy your "with a warning" argument when he is aware of > rulings stating the opposite ? Well the corporate laywer can also havea warning that he may get sued if he doesn't release the needed keys. There now he can and use openbsd and everyone is happy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-30 20:49 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-09-30 20:38 ` Thomas Gleixner 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Thomas Gleixner @ 2006-09-30 20:38 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Alan Cox Cc: Helge Hafting, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Sat, 2006-09-30 at 21:49 +0100, Alan Cox wrote: > Ar Sad, 2006-09-30 am 20:38 +0200, ysgrifennodd Thomas Gleixner: > > This might be silly in your opinion, but it is simply the reality, > > especially in the US, but also in Europe we have an increasing madness > > in liability jurisdiction. Do you believe that any responsible corporate > > lawyer will buy your "with a warning" argument when he is aware of > > rulings stating the opposite ? > > Well the corporate laywer can also havea warning that he may get sued if > he doesn't release the needed keys. There now he can and use openbsd and > everyone is happy. Really? tglx ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 10:51 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-25 11:31 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-09-25 14:27 ` Lee Revell 2006-09-25 19:05 ` Jan Engelhardt ` (2 more replies) 2006-09-25 19:46 ` Jeff Garzik 2 siblings, 3 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Lee Revell @ 2006-09-25 14:27 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Neil Brown; +Cc: Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 20:51 +1000, Neil Brown wrote: > Tolerance of binary blogs seems to be steadily dropping. > > As far as I can tell, the DVD-CSS is purely a legal issue today - the > technical issues are solved (I can watch any-region on my Linux > computer, and in Australia, the law requires that all DVD players must > ignore region encoding as it is an anti-competitive practice). Tolerance by who? As far as I can tell tolerance for binary blobs by the typical Linux desktop user is higher than ever. They consider it a bug if their distro does not automagically install the nvidia/ATI drivers, and immediately write you off as a GPL zealot if you even mention that a tainted kernel cannot be debugged. Lee ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 14:27 ` Lee Revell @ 2006-09-25 19:05 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-25 20:58 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-26 21:32 ` Oleg Verych 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-25 19:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lee Revell; +Cc: Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel >> Tolerance of binary blogs seems to be steadily dropping. >> >> As far as I can tell, the DVD-CSS is purely a legal issue today - the >> technical issues are solved (I can watch any-region on my Linux >> computer, and in Australia, the law requires that all DVD players must >> ignore region encoding as it is an anti-competitive practice). > >Tolerance by who? As far as I can tell tolerance for binary blobs by >the typical Linux desktop user is higher than ever. They consider it a >bug if their distro does not automagically install the nvidia/ATI >drivers, and immediately write you off as a GPL zealot if you even >mention that a tainted kernel cannot be debugged. It may be can [be debugged], but it is not going to be much fun. These people just don't realize the question what they would do if the same [segfault] happened on their Windows box. Support is not always guaranteed from companies unless taking the more pricy support. Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 14:27 ` Lee Revell 2006-09-25 19:05 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-25 20:58 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-25 22:10 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 2006-09-26 21:32 ` Oleg Verych 2 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-25 20:58 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel; +Cc: Lee Revell, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley On Monday 25 September 2006 10:27, Lee Revell wrote: >On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 20:51 +1000, Neil Brown wrote: >> Tolerance of binary blogs seems to be steadily dropping. >> >> As far as I can tell, the DVD-CSS is purely a legal issue today - the >> technical issues are solved (I can watch any-region on my Linux >> computer, and in Australia, the law requires that all DVD players must >> ignore region encoding as it is an anti-competitive practice). I suspect thats history now, with the DMCA proposals now being voted on there. >Tolerance by who? As far as I can tell tolerance for binary blobs by >the typical Linux desktop user is higher than ever. Generaly speaking, from someone way up in the top level of the bleacher seats here, thats true, as for instance the ndiswrapper scenario, required by the rules of the various radio spectrum regulating agencies around the planet. They would never, ever, give approval to a driver that was 100% open source because of the ease with which the open source coder could make them illegal, either for frequencies used, or for the Transmitter Power Output one of these software radios COULD be made to do. >They consider it a >bug if their distro does not automagically install the nvidia/ATI >drivers, and immediately write you off as a GPL zealot if you even >mention that a tainted kernel cannot be debugged. No, I do not, and never have said too much about it (as if anyone would listen to me anyway) unless I was pissed because the kernels available driver was obviously broken and caused crashes etc. We DO understand, very well, that troubleshooting a problem just isn't possible when the srcs are not available, meaning there is no way in hell you can certify that the tainting driver didn't scribble all over memory it has no business scribbling into. Begin rant: Yeah, we'ed be fools to say we don't have a political agenda when we're forced to use substandard or questionably legal means for reasons related to the above. But give us credit for understanding the reasons. What we, the users, need in many cases, is a contact address to address our vents to, for instance for someone at broadcom, high enough to have meaningfull input to the discussions in the board room, that we could mail-bomb with requests for better support. If 3000+ people who bought their stuff with some well known makers label on it, like HP, and found they couldn't use that builtin radio and do it 100% legal and compatibly, would email (and Cc: your countries regulatory agency too) that chip maker and gently but firmly bitch, that bit of 'politics' might well bring about some constructive change in broadcoms (and the regulatory agencies involved) attitude vis-a-vis specs release so better drivers could be written. End rant. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 20:58 ` Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-25 22:10 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: linux-os (Dick Johnson) @ 2006-09-25 22:10 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Gene Heskett Cc: linux-kernel, Lee Revell, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley On Mon, 25 Sep 2006, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Monday 25 September 2006 10:27, Lee Revell wrote: >> On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 20:51 +1000, Neil Brown wrote: >>> Tolerance of binary blogs seems to be steadily dropping. >>> >>> As far as I can tell, the DVD-CSS is purely a legal issue today - the >>> technical issues are solved (I can watch any-region on my Linux >>> computer, and in Australia, the law requires that all DVD players must >>> ignore region encoding as it is an anti-competitive practice). > > I suspect thats history now, with the DMCA proposals now being voted on > there. > >> Tolerance by who? As far as I can tell tolerance for binary blobs by >> the typical Linux desktop user is higher than ever. > > Generaly speaking, from someone way up in the top level of the bleacher > seats here, thats true, as for instance the ndiswrapper scenario, required > by the rules of the various radio spectrum regulating agencies around the > planet. They would never, ever, give approval to a driver that was 100% > open source because of the ease with which the open source coder could > make them illegal, either for frequencies used, or for the Transmitter > Power Output one of these software radios COULD be made to do. Actually no. I've now heard this false information too many times. As somebody who has prepared over 40 applications for FCC Type Acceptance, and submitted monitoring equipment for FCC Type Approval, I have first-hand experience. If somebody was so dumb as to disclose to the FCC that a hacker could make the equipment unsuitable for its intended use, the FCC would not allow the equipment to be used. No certification would be forthcoming. On the other hand, if part of the "turning-on" process was to load some bits from a bucket, this disclosure must be part of the approval process. The FCC just might require that the bits be checked for integrity, perhaps a checksum or CRC. Also, you can't adjust a milliwatt transmitter to produce a megawatt, no matter how hard you try. The power output is allowed to be reduced by software below the authorized maximum for that class of service. You'd do much better at getting more power out by designing a custom antenna coupling circuit so that the fixed output voltage could be fed to a lower output impedance. Then you'd eventually run into fold-back and overheating of those tiny RF transistors. It's most likely, however, that a complete disclosure of the device to be operated has not been made at all! Disclosing that a complete disclosure has not been made, when in fact it's required, could result in not only the loss of approval, but in fines as well. Further, you can look at the disclaimer (the FCC Label) on any item that had to be approved. It states quite clearly that modifications render the device unapproved. As for frequencies, the pseudo-random frequency-hop needs a center- frequency that's pretty much set in stone (actually a quartz one). Anybody can change quartz crystals. Again, modifications remove approval. The typical user can operate unapproved equipment at his own peril. However, it's unlikely that they will be caught unless they leave their modified device on the lawn of the FCC's standards office in Laurel, MD. It's all moot. The device manufacturers don't want the competition to know what's in those bits so their nature is not going to be disclosed. Further, even if they provided the FPGA "source-code" it's unlikely that most people would be able to use it at all. Single-seat licenses for much of that stuff costs over US$500.00 -just a bit too much to hack a US$39.99 device. However, if you are a (choose your country) clone manufacturer, it would be a pretty good deal to buy a US$39.99 board as a sample, buy a US$500.00 software license, then clone 10,000 of these, selling them at US$29.99 a pop. That's a US$300k profit for a US$539.99 investment and that's why you are not going to get the source-code! > >> They consider it a >> bug if their distro does not automagically install the nvidia/ATI >> drivers, and immediately write you off as a GPL zealot if you even >> mention that a tainted kernel cannot be debugged. > > No, I do not, and never have said too much about it (as if anyone would > listen to me anyway) unless I was pissed because the kernels available > driver was obviously broken and caused crashes etc. We DO understand, > very well, that troubleshooting a problem just isn't possible when the > srcs are not available, meaning there is no way in hell you can certify > that the tainting driver didn't scribble all over memory it has no > business scribbling into. > > Begin rant: > > Yeah, we'ed be fools to say we don't have a political agenda when we're > forced to use substandard or questionably legal means for reasons related > to the above. But give us credit for understanding the reasons. What we, > the users, need in many cases, is a contact address to address our vents > to, for instance for someone at broadcom, high enough to have meaningfull > input to the discussions in the board room, that we could mail-bomb with > requests for better support. If 3000+ people who bought their stuff with > some well known makers label on it, like HP, and found they couldn't use > that builtin radio and do it 100% legal and compatibly, would email (and > Cc: your countries regulatory agency too) that chip maker and gently but > firmly bitch, that bit of 'politics' might well bring about some > constructive change in broadcoms (and the regulatory agencies involved) > attitude vis-a-vis specs release so better drivers could be written. > > End rant. > > -- > Cheers, Gene > "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: > soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." > -Ed Howdershelt (Author) > Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above > message by Gene Heskett are: > Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. Cheers, Dick Johnson Penguin : Linux version 2.6.16.24 on an i686 machine (5592.66 BogoMips). New book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/ _ \x1a\x04 **************************************************************** The information transmitted in this message is confidential and may be privileged. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or other use of this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify Analogic Corporation immediately - by replying to this message or by sending an email to DeliveryErrors@analogic.com - and destroy all copies of this information, including any attachments, without reading or disclosing them. Thank you. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 14:27 ` Lee Revell 2006-09-25 19:05 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-25 20:58 ` Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-26 21:32 ` Oleg Verych 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Oleg Verych @ 2006-09-26 21:32 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lee Revell, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Hallo, On 2006-09-25, Lee Revell <rlrevell@joe-job.com> wrote: > On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 20:51 +1000, Neil Brown wrote: >> Tolerance of binary blogs seems to be steadily dropping. >> [Binary bloGs. Yea, that's future of it (and XML) ;] >> As far as I can tell, the DVD-CSS is purely a legal issue today - the >> technical issues are solved (I can watch any-region on my Linux >> computer, and in Australia, the law requires that all DVD players must >> ignore region encoding as it is an anti-competitive practice). > > Tolerance by who? As far as I can tell tolerance for binary blobs by > the typical Linux desktop user is higher than ever. They consider it a > bug if their distro does not automagically install the nvidia/ATI > drivers, and immediately write you off as a GPL zealot if you even > mention that a tainted kernel cannot be debugged. This is not what Linux all about, as far as i can understand, reading lkml. Recall, please, linuxant MODULE_LICENSE("GPL\0 if bla-bla") case. Poor linux users, happy with stupid devices at low bandwidth and Working Drivers (tm). NV/ATI's driver _users_ are the same, *it's cool to be a kung-fu hacker* fashion. And don't tell me linux is desktop / game / home theater ready, please. It's nearly an orthogonal world by purpose and needs. (IMHO, of course) That fashion even affects Debian with all that firmware stuff. Invalid users (who cannot manage to have Debian installed without firmware, but loves it, server support for free or ever freedom; last is rare already) are in damn higher priority, than a 15 years of Social Contract. > Lee > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 10:51 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-25 11:31 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-25 14:27 ` Lee Revell @ 2006-09-25 19:46 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-25 21:10 ` Gene Heskett 2 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-25 19:46 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Neil Brown; +Cc: Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Neil Brown wrote: > But maybe I am just misinformed. Maybe there are dozens of different > manufacturers making devices that use DRM to prohibit freedom despite > using GPL code, and maybe there are hundreds of submarine patents > owned by distributors of GPL code and embodied in that code that the > owners are going to start suing us overs.... Is there a list of these > somewhere? At least for patents, lawyers scream bloody murder if a list of patents is posted. Once that is done, people can no longer claim ignorance of a patent. >> What is the stance of the developer team / kernel maintainers on DRM, > > While I cannot speak for other developers (and sometimes have trouble > speaking for myself), one stance I have often heard is that DRM is > simply a tool - one that is largely based on cryptography which is > just another tool. They can have good uses and bad uses just like the > TCP/IP stack (think 'spam'). So code to implement then would (if of > suitable quality) be allowed into the kernel. If you want to make DRM > illegal, speak to your member-of-parliament, not your code developers. This is a KEY POINT: There can be good DRM as well as bad DRM. Jeff ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 19:46 ` Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-25 21:10 ` Gene Heskett 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-25 21:10 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel; +Cc: Jeff Garzik, Neil Brown, Michiel de Boer, James Bottomley On Monday 25 September 2006 15:46, Jeff Garzik wrote: >Neil Brown wrote: >> But maybe I am just misinformed. Maybe there are dozens of different >> manufacturers making devices that use DRM to prohibit freedom despite >> using GPL code, and maybe there are hundreds of submarine patents >> owned by distributors of GPL code and embodied in that code that the >> owners are going to start suing us overs.... Is there a list of these >> somewhere? > >At least for patents, lawyers scream bloody murder if a list of patents >is posted. Once that is done, people can no longer claim ignorance of a >patent. Thats their problem, they created this mess in the first place. I can recall buying, years ago, things whose makers label devoted more text area to listing the applicable patents either pending or granted on the device the label was attached to than was devoted to the makers logo itself. Now it probably takes whole pages of 4 pt pica text with the patent proliferation ad adsurdium thats taken place in the last 40 years... Bah. All created to make sure the legal profession never starves. >>> What is the stance of the developer team / kernel maintainers on DRM, >> >> While I cannot speak for other developers (and sometimes have trouble >> speaking for myself), one stance I have often heard is that DRM is >> simply a tool - one that is largely based on cryptography which is >> just another tool. They can have good uses and bad uses just like the >> TCP/IP stack (think 'spam'). So code to implement then would (if of >> suitable quality) be allowed into the kernel. If you want to make DRM >> illegal, speak to your member-of-parliament, not your code developers. > >This is a KEY POINT: There can be good DRM as well as bad DRM. > > Jeff > > >- >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/ -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 8:53 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Michiel de Boer 2006-09-25 9:06 ` Russell King 2006-09-25 10:51 ` Neil Brown @ 2006-09-25 11:11 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-25 14:12 ` James Bottomley ` (2 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-25 11:11 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Michiel de Boer; +Cc: James Bottomley, linux-kernel > > What is the stance of the developer team / kernel maintainers on > DRM, Trusted Computing and software patents? Does the refusal to > adopt GPLv3 as is mean that these two are more likely to emerge as > supported functionality in the Linux kernel? Are there any moral > boundaries Linux kernel developers will not cross concerning > present and new U.S. laws on technology? Are they willing to put > that in writing? Will Linux support HD-DVD and BluRay by being > slightly more tolerant to closed source binary blobs? What about > the already existant problems with the Content Scrambling System > for DVD's? I agree with Neil here. Supporting HD-DVD/BluRay/Other will probably "as simple" as integrating DVD support into the CD-only source code back when DVDs where introduced was. I suppose that HD-DVD drives will use the same ATAPI/SATA commands as DVD drives do (plus/minus the regular extras). In other words: Data read from the drive arrives as bytes that are ready to be parsed according to struct toc / whatever. There is no kernel-level translation required right now (at least it looks that way), and to watch a CSS-encrypted video, you need some extra userspace software to do so. I do not see why HD-DVD/BR should suddenly require a kernel-level CSS/Other decryptor... or did I miss something and Windows had a kernel-level deCSS all the time? > Finally, i hope that the wishes of the community of people that have only > contributed to the kernel a few times but whose combined work may equal that > of the core developers, are taken into account; as well as the wishes of > the massive amount of users of the Linux kernel. > > How about a public poll? Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 8:53 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Michiel de Boer ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-25 11:11 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-25 14:12 ` James Bottomley 2006-09-25 16:50 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-25 17:26 ` James Bottomley 5 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: James Bottomley @ 2006-09-25 14:12 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Michiel de Boer; +Cc: linux-kernel On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 10:53 +0200, Michiel de Boer wrote: > For what it's worth, i support RMS and his fight for free software fully. > I support the current draft of the GPL version 3 and am very dissapointed > it will not be adopted as is. IMHO, Linux has the power and influence > to move mountains in the software industry, and shouldn't shy away from > the opportunity to take moral responsibility when it arises. Well ... as Russell already pointed out; adopting GPLv3 was made incredibly difficult for us by the FSF. We could easily adopt a GPLv2 compatible licence simply by going through some sort of process to secure agreement and then altering the COPYING file of the kernel (the point being that past contributions would still be v2, future contributions would be the new licence and there's no distribution problem because they're compatible). There are definite bug fixes to v2 in the v3 draft: Bittorrent and termination. However, we could adopt those in a v2 compatible fashion (as additional permissions). Additionally, it does strike me that a patent grant could be formulated in a v2 compatible manner if people agreed on it. Obviously, the additional restrictions of v3 is completely impossible to accommodate in a v2 compatible manner. The DRM provisions could be disputed: if you believe they're already in v2, then they could be adopted in a v2 compatible fashion as a clarification ... however, they'd have to be quite a bit less broad than the current v3 language. All in all, we could probably only switch to v3 by some type of universal acclamation process, which, with 28 votes against already isn't really likely. James ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 8:53 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Michiel de Boer ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-25 14:12 ` James Bottomley @ 2006-09-25 16:50 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-25 17:26 ` James Bottomley 5 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-25 16:50 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Michiel de Boer; +Cc: James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Mon, 25 Sep 2006, Michiel de Boer wrote: > > I support the current draft of the GPL version 3 and am very dissapointed > it will not be adopted as is. IMHO, Linux has the power and influence > to move mountains in the software industry, and shouldn't shy away from > the opportunity to take moral responsibility when it arises. Well, you do have to realize that Linux has never been an FSF project, and in fact has never even been a "Free Software" project. The whole "Open Source" renaming was done largely _exactly_ because people wanted to distance themselves from the FSF. The fact that the FSF and it's followers refused to accept the name "Open Source", and continued to call Linux "Free Software" is not _our_ fault. Similarly, the fact that rms and the FSF has tried to paint Linux as a GNU project (going as far as trying to rename it "GNU/Linux" at every opportunity they get) is their confusion, not ours. I personally have always been very clear about this: Linux is "Open Source". It was never a FSF project, and it was always about giving source code back and keeping it open, not about anything else. The very first license used for the kernel was _not_ the GPL at all, but read the release notes for Linux 0.01, and you will see: 2. Copyrights etc This kernel is (C) 1991 Linus Torvalds, but all or part of it may be redistributed provided you do the following: - Full source must be available (and free), if not with the distribution then at least on asking for it. - Copyright notices must be intact. (In fact, if you distribute only parts of it you may have to add copyrights, as there aren't (C)'s in all files.) Small partial excerpts may be copied without bothering with copyrights. - You may not distibute this for a fee, not even "handling" costs. notice? Linux from the very beginning was not about the FSF ideals, but about "Full source must be available". It also talked about "Free", but that very much was "Free as in beer, not as in freedom", and I decided to drop that later on. How much clearer can I be? I've actively tried to promote "Open Source" as an alternative to "Free Software", so the FSF only has itself to blame over the confusion. Thinking that Linux has followed FSF goals is incorrect. IT NEVER DID! I think the GPLv2 is an absolutely great license. I obviously relicensed everything just a few months after releasing the first version of Linux. But people who claim that that means that I (or anybody else) should care what the FSF thinks on other issues are just being totally silly. > What is the stance of the developer team / kernel maintainers on DRM, > Trusted Computing and software patents? I'm very much on record as not liking them. That changes nothing. I'm also very much on record as saying that DRM, TPC etc have nothing at all to do with the kernel license. If you want to fight DRM, do so by joining the Creative Commons movement. The problem with Disney is not that they use DRM, it's that they control the content in the first place - and they do that because content tends to be too monopolized. The whole "content" discussion has _nothing_ to do with an operating system. Trying to add that tie-in is a bad idea. It tries to link things that aren't relevant. So go fight the problem at the _source_ of the problem, not in my project that has got nothing to do it. And please, when you join that fight, use your _own_ copyrights. Not somebody elses. I absolutely hate how the FSF has tried to use my code as a weapon, just because I decided that their license was good. > How about a public poll? Here's a poll for you: - go write your own kernel - poll which one is more popular It really is that simple. The kernel was released with a few rules. The same way you can't just make your own version of it and then not release sources, you _also_ cannot just make it GPLv3. It's not a democracy. Copyright is a _right_. Authors matter. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-25 8:53 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Michiel de Boer ` (4 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-25 16:50 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-25 17:26 ` James Bottomley 5 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: James Bottomley @ 2006-09-25 17:26 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Michiel de Boer; +Cc: linux-kernel On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 10:53 +0200, Michiel de Boer wrote: > What is the stance of the developer team / kernel maintainers on DRM, > Trusted Computing and software patents? Does the refusal to adopt GPLv3 as > is mean that these two are more likely to emerge as supported functionality > in the Linux kernel? Are there any moral boundaries Linux kernel developers > will not cross concerning present and new U.S. laws on technology? Are they > willing to put that in writing? Will Linux support HD-DVD and BluRay by > being slightly more tolerant to closed source binary blobs? What about > the already existant problems with the Content Scrambling System for > DVD's? Well, I think the email you quoted above gave the stance on DRM as used by the content industry (in the bit you snipped): > ... we find the use of DRM by media companies in their attempts to > reach into user owned devices to control content deeply disturbing I'll venture my personal opinion of replacing "deeply disturbing" with "abhorrent". The trusted computing platform insofar as it is an agent of that same DRM use by the media companies would thus share that opinion. However, if it were sold as an agent at the disposal of the user of the machine (rather than the content providers) then it wouldn't. These technologies are not intrinsically "evil" it's the use to which they're put that can be. As far as the you must be able to run modifications language goes: too many embedded devices nowadays embed linux. To demand a channel for modification is dictating to manufacturers how they build things. Take the case of an intelligent SCSI PCI card which happens to run embedded linux in flash. The v3 draft requirements dictate a channel to modify the flash image ... if that's a PCI card, the manufacturer has no earthly way to control what happens on the platform into which its plugged. So, if it's soldered onto a sparc motherboard and the card manufacturer though their responsibility was discharged by producing a dos flash floppy, who just broke the v3 requirements? should the sparc motherboard maker care what embedded OS all the components run? should the price for using linux to make embedded components be that you have to provide modification toolkits for every conceivable platform they could be used in? Also, I just don't accept that Tivo is bad for Linux (even if I could be persuaded that attacking Tivo would somehow help the battle against the content providers' DRM efforts). I admit that not much useful has come out of that one company, but the no tampering with the image requirement came from cable companies who saw modifying a Tivo to store and redistribute content to be a threat to them. There's a much more clearcut example than Tivo: the Moxi (its rival), which has identical bootloader requirements forced on it by cable companies for identical reasons. It's produced by Digeo who, according to my personal count, provided us with several device driver updates, a slew of filesystem improvements and a kernel maintainer (which, I think everyone will agree, went beyond their strict GPLv2 requirements)... how does some perceived inequity with Tivo justify killing Digeo? or even making life difficult for embedded hardware manufacturers? Look at it this way: every Tivo is a potential Digeo ... we just have to persuade them. James ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 16:15 GPLv3 Position Statement James Bottomley ` (6 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-25 8:53 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Michiel de Boer @ 2006-09-25 15:30 ` Xavier Bestel 2006-09-27 1:11 ` Sergey Panov 8 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Xavier Bestel @ 2006-09-25 15:30 UTC (permalink / raw) To: James Bottomley; +Cc: linux-kernel On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 18:15, James Bottomley wrote: > [...] we > foresee the release of GPLv3 portends the Balkanisation of the entire Open > Source Universe upon which we rely. This Balkanisation, which will be > manifested by distributions being forced to fork various packages in order > to get consistent licences, has the potential to inflict massive collateral > damage upon our entire ecosystem and jeopardise the very utility and > survival of Open Source. [...] This language looks terribly like US politician bullshit. Maybe you should reformulate that "paper". Xav ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-22 16:15 GPLv3 Position Statement James Bottomley ` (7 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-25 15:30 ` Xavier Bestel @ 2006-09-27 1:11 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-27 5:55 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-27 16:08 ` Greg KH 8 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-27 1:11 UTC (permalink / raw) To: James Bottomley; +Cc: linux-kernel On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 11:15 -0500, James Bottomley wrote: > Over the past decade, the Linux Operating System has shown itself to be far > and away the most successful Open Source operating system in history. > However, it certainly wasn't the first such open source operating system > and neither is it currently the only such operating system. Fuzzy (but realistic) logic: kernel != operating_system operating_system > kernel operating_system - kernel = 0 kernel - (operating_system - kernel) < 0 The Q. I'd like to know the answer to is: What part of the (operating_system - kernel) part is ready to adopt v.3? Another (license compatibility) Q. is: If the (operating_system - kernel) is re-licensed under v.3 and the kernel is still under v.2 , would it be possible to distribute combination (kernel + (operating_system - kernel)) ? The last Q. is how good is the almost forgotten Hurd kernel? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 1:11 ` Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-27 5:55 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-27 7:36 ` Sergey Panov ` (2 more replies) 2006-09-27 16:08 ` Greg KH 1 sibling, 3 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-27 5:55 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Sergey Panov; +Cc: James Bottomley, linux-kernel >Fuzzy (but realistic) logic: > > kernel != operating_system > > operating_system > kernel > > operating_system - kernel = 0 > > kernel - (operating_system - kernel) < 0 > >Another (license compatibility) Q. is: > If the (operating_system - kernel) is re-licensed under v.3 and > the kernel is still under v.2 , would it be possible to distribute > combination (kernel + (operating_system - kernel)) ? If by operating system you mean the surrounding userland application, then yes, why should there be a problem with a GPL2 kernel and a GPL3 userland? After all, the userland is not only GPL, but also BSD and other stuff. >The last Q. is how good is the almost forgotten Hurd kernel? Wild guess: At most on par with Minix. Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 5:55 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-27 7:36 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-27 8:58 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-27 12:32 ` Theodore Tso 2006-09-27 17:00 ` Linus Torvalds 2 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-27 7:36 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt; +Cc: James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 2006-09-27 at 07:55 +0200, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > >Fuzzy (but realistic) logic: > > > > kernel != operating_system > > > > operating_system > kernel > > > > operating_system - kernel = 0 > > > > kernel - (operating_system - kernel) < 0 > > > >Another (license compatibility) Q. is: > > If the (operating_system - kernel) is re-licensed under v.3 and > > the kernel is still under v.2 , would it be possible to distribute > > combination (kernel + (operating_system - kernel)) ? > > If by operating system you mean the surrounding userland application, almost, surrounding_userland_applications = (operating_system - kernel) > then yes, why should there be a problem with a GPL2 kernel and a GPL3 > userland? After all, the userland is not only GPL, but also BSD and > other stuff. It was not a problem with GPL[0-1]/BSD/MIT license, but is it still true with GPL3? What is the difference between running application on the top of the kernel "A" and linked with the library "B"? > >The last Q. is how good is the almost forgotten Hurd kernel? > > Wild guess: At most on par with Minix. ... ???. I am not so sure. Kernel is really a small thing. The VMWare proprietary hyper-visor was/is reusing Linux drivers with ease, why BSD or Hurd can not do the same? As a former (Linux) driver writer I like to show the following numbers to my friends: $ du -s lib kernel net drivers 980 lib 1728 kernel 16132 net 130872 drivers and: $ find ./kernel -type f -exec cat {} + | wc -l 48312 $ find ./drivers -type f -exec cat {} + | wc -l 3367849 ================================================================ PS. Given that some of the sub-systems (e.g SCSI) in Linux still suck badly, other OS (not as in Operating Systems but as in Open Source) alternatives might eventually gain some ground in the enterprise environment. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 7:36 ` Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-27 8:58 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-27 12:19 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-27 18:01 ` Theodore Tso 0 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-27 8:58 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Sergey Panov; +Cc: James Bottomley, linux-kernel >almost, surrounding_userland_applications = (operating_system - kernel) > >> then yes, why should there be a problem with a GPL2 kernel and a GPL3 >> userland? After all, the userland is not only GPL, but also BSD and >> other stuff. > >It was not a problem with GPL[0-1]/BSD/MIT license, but is it still true >with GPL3? What is the difference between running application on the top >of the kernel "A" and linked with the library "B"? I think Linus once said that he does not consider the kernel to become part of a combined work when an application uses the kernel. I tend to agree, it's gray (unless Linus explicitly colorizes it) -- IIRC the GPL allows a GPL and closed program to interact if they do so using 'standard' interfaces, i.e. passing a file as argument, or shell redirection, communicating over a pipe or a socket, etc. But OTOH, linking code makes it a combined work. And the question now is: Since the kernel is the one providing these standard services, what would apply? Do userland and kernel communicate by means of linking or by means of standardized interfaces (in this case - fixed syscall numbers or thelike). I'd say the latter. An application does not link with the kernel IMHO, no symbol resolution is done. >> >The last Q. is how good is the almost forgotten Hurd kernel? >> >> Wild guess: At most on par with Minix. > >... ???. I am not so sure. Kernel is really a small thing. The VMWare >proprietary hyper-visor was/is reusing Linux drivers with ease, why BSD or >Hurd can not do the same? As a former (Linux) driver writer I like to show the >following numbers to my friends: Oh well I was rather interpreting the question as "What about Hurd?" and my answer was the same from the Hurd page last time I read it. "It's not so complete to make up a production system." or similar. >================================================================ > >PS. Given that some of the sub-systems (e.g SCSI) in Linux still suck >badly, other OS (not as in Operating Systems but as in Open Source) >alternatives might eventually gain some ground in the enterprise >environment. Don't tell me you like the Solaris way of naming devices. :) Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 8:58 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-27 12:19 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-27 17:28 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-27 18:01 ` Theodore Tso 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Alan Cox @ 2006-09-27 12:19 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt; +Cc: Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Ar Mer, 2006-09-27 am 10:58 +0200, ysgrifennodd Jan Engelhardt: > I think Linus once said that he does not consider the kernel to > become part of a combined work when an application uses the kernel. COPYING top of the kernel source tree. > I tend to agree, it's gray (unless Linus explicitly colorizes it) -- > IIRC the GPL allows a GPL and closed program to interact if they do so > using 'standard' interfaces, i.e. passing a file as argument, or > shell redirection, communicating over a pipe or a socket, etc. > But OTOH, linking code makes it a combined work. No. The definition of a derivative work is a legal one and not a technical one. Take a look at the history of the objective C compiler front end for gcc. It is possible that linked code is not derivative or pipe using code is derivative - consider for example RPC. Simply making a linux device driver make the same function calls to the kernel by RPC messages over a pipe type device would not change its status. Alan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 12:19 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-09-27 17:28 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-27 18:37 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-28 8:04 ` Jan Engelhardt 0 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-27 17:28 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Alan Cox; +Cc: Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel [ This is not so much really a reply to Alan, as a rant on some of the issues that Alan takes up ] On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Alan Cox wrote: > Ar Mer, 2006-09-27 am 10:58 +0200, ysgrifennodd Jan Engelhardt: > > I think Linus once said that he does not consider the kernel to > > become part of a combined work when an application uses the kernel. > > COPYING top of the kernel source tree. Yes. But also somethign much more fundamental: Copyright Law - regardless of country You can claim anything you damn well want in a license, but in the end, it's all about "derived works". If something is not a derived work, it doesn't matter _what_ ownership rights you have, it's simply not an issue. So even if the kernel had a big neon sign that said "You're bound by this license in user space too!" (or, more likely, didn't have a sign at all, like was the case originally), that has absolutely _zero_ legal meaning for a copyright license. A license cannot cover something just because it "says so". For example, I could write a copyright license that said "This license forbids you from ever copying the kernel, or any work made by Leo Tolstoy, which is just a pseudonym for the easter bunny" and the fact that the license claims to control the works of Leo "the easter bunny" Tolstoy, claiming so simply doesn't make it so. And yes, the above is obviously ridiculous, but the point is, it's no more ridiculous than a license that would claim that it extends to programs just because you can run then on Linux. In fact, it's also no more ridiculous than a license that claims it extends copyright the other way - to the hardware or platform that you run a program on. From a legal standpoint, such wording is just totally idiotic. [ So the wording at the top of the license is a clarification of fact, not really any kind of change of the license itself. It actually does have some legal meaning (it shows "intent"), but most importantly it allows people to not have to even worry about frivolous lawsuits. Nobody can sue people for not running GPLv2 user-space through normal system calls, because the statement of intent makes it clear that a judge would throw out such a suit immediately. So I think the important thing here to take away is that "frivolous" part of the lawsuit. The language doesn't actually _change_ the legal meaning, but it protects against idiots. And a lot of lawyers worry about idiots and money-grubbing douchebags *cough*SCO*cough*, and as such obvious clarifications _can_ be useful. ] Another real-world example of this mis-understanding is that a lot of people seem to think that the GPLv2 disallows "linking" with non-GPLv2 code. Almost everybody I ever meet say that, and the FSF has written long pieces on shared libraries etc. People don't have a clue! The GPLv2 never _ever_ mentions "linking" or any other technical measure at all. Doing so would just be stupid (another problem with the GPLv3, btw). So people who think that the GPLv2 disallows "linking" with non-GPLv2 code had better go back and read the license again. Grep for it, if you want to. The word "link" simply DOES NOT EXIST IN THE LICENSE! (It does exist at the end of the _file_ that contains the license, but that's not actually the license at all, it's just the "btw, this is how you might _use_ the license", and while legally that can be used to show "intent", it does not actually extend the copyright in the work in any way, shape, or form). What the GPLv2 actually talks about is _only_ about "derived work". And whether linking (dynamically, statically, or by using an army of worker gnomes that re-arrange the bits to their liking) means something is "derived or not" is a totally different issue, and is not something you can actually say one way or the other, because it will depend on the circumstances. I'm always surprised by how many people talk abut the GPLv2 (and, quite frankly, about the GPLv3 draft) without actually seemingly having ever read the damn thing, or, more likely, ever really understood any legal stuff what-so-ever, or the difference between the _use_ of a license, and the license itself. For example, in the GPLv3 discussions, I've seen more than one person claim that I've used a special magic version of the GPLv2 that doesn't have the "v2 or any later" clause. Again, those people don't have a _clue_ about what they are talking about. They feel very free in arguing about other peoples copyrigted works, and the fact that I'm not a lawyer, but then they ignore the fact that I actually _do_ know what I'm talking about, and that they don't have a stinking clue. > No. The definition of a derivative work is a legal one and not a > technical one. Exactly. A lot of people don't understand this, and a lot of people think that "derivative" means "being close". Linking doesn't make something derivative per se - the same way _not_ linking doesn't make it not be derivative. Now, it is also indisputable that if you _need_ to "link", it's a damn good sign that something is _very_likely_ to be derivative, but as Alan points out, you could do the same thing with RPC over a socket, and the fact that you did it technically differently really makes no real difference. So linking per se isn't the issue, and never has been. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 17:28 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-27 18:37 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-27 19:11 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-27 22:58 ` Theodore Tso 2006-09-28 8:04 ` Jan Engelhardt 1 sibling, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Chase Venters @ 2006-09-27 18:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > For example, I could write a copyright license that said > > "This license forbids you from ever copying the kernel, or any > work made by Leo Tolstoy, which is just a pseudonym for the > easter bunny" > > and the fact that the license claims to control the works of Leo "the > easter bunny" Tolstoy, claiming so simply doesn't make it so. > > And yes, the above is obviously ridiculous, but the point is, it's no more > ridiculous than a license that would claim that it extends to programs > just because you can run then on Linux. > > In fact, it's also no more ridiculous than a license that claims it > extends copyright the other way - to the hardware or platform that you run > a program on. From a legal standpoint, such wording is just totally > idiotic. > The reason a clause such as that will work is that people have no natural right to redistribute Linux. To invoke the FSF's Tivo example, if the Tivo company wants to stamp out 5,000 Tivo boxes, they're going to make 5,000 copies of Linux in the process. By default and by direct notice, the pieces that make up Linux, and the compilation of Linux itself, is copyrighted. This totally prohibits Tivo from making legal copies. If Tivo wants to redistribute Linux, they need a license. That license is GPLv2, but let us assume for a moment that rms spiked the punch at OLS and the kernel became GPLv3. If GPLv3 says "You may not make copies of the covered work unless you agree to these terms", and one term says, "You must not use technological means to override a stated license freedom", then Tivo redistributes Linux anyway inside a device that uses technological means (signed code, for instance) to override a stated freedom, Tivo is breaking the law, unless every Linux copyright holder agreed to give Tivo a special exception (aka license). So regardless of whether or not you think such a term is ridiculous, it is enforceable. The only place I am aware that law might deliberately reduce the scope of a license's requirements is to uphold fair use rights, or along the same lines, to ensure fair treatment of a consumer that has paid money for something and is being subjected to unreasonable coercion by the copyright holder of what they have paid for. If you haven't paid for a copyrighted work, and the copies you want to make do not fall under fair use ("we needed a cheap and good operating system for our embedded device" is not in that category), you need to obey the license or find something else to copy. I don't want to get ensnared in another licensing debate about code I have no moral or legal claim to, but I do want to thank those of you behind the position statement. I'm not sure I agree with your points but I think the dialogue itself is important. The last thing that I want to say is that I wish people wouldn't imply to the press (wink wink, nudge nudge, Linus) that the FSF is evil. I've heard at various times the following things in the press: 1. "The FSF is not going to listen to anyone about GPLv3" 2. "The FSF is not listening to anyone about the GPLv3" 3. "I don't want to participate in the GPLv3 process" 4. "The FSF knows my views because I have carbon-copied them" ...meanwhile, the FSF is allegedly trying to open up a dialogue. I think the important distinction is that the FSF will listen to anything the kernel people (or anyone else for that matter) say, but whatever is said will be interpreted and balanced in the context of the FSF's original goals of the license, Freedoms 0-3, and most certainly what they believe those Freedoms to be. I think one thing that should have happened a _lot_ sooner is that you and others should have made clear to the startled community that you object precisely to the anti-Tivoization clause, not because of any technical reason or interpretation but because you don't see anything wrong with Tivo's use of Linux. It would have been nice but totally optional to engage in dialogue with the FSF. But slandering them about their license development process, or their intentions with regard to using Linux as leverage, is counterproductive whether true or not. I'm one of those lefty "free software" types, though I don't disbelieve in "open source" either. At this point, I consider it likely that I'll use the GPLv3 for any software I independently develop, and I'll continue to be damn thankful that I have the best operating system kernel ever in history to freely run that code on. When I submit a patch to Linux, I'll happily do so knowing that it will be licensed underneath the wonderful GPLv2. The reason I wrote this long message is that despite having never met any of you, I consider you all friends. We're software developers working for a common good, even if we see it a different way. I hope that's enough to make me your friends as well. If that is the case, and we're all friends here, let's be fair to the FSF even if we don't agree with them, and even if some of their members haven't been fair to us in the past. Thanks, Chase Venters ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 18:37 ` Chase Venters @ 2006-09-27 19:11 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 12:42 ` Pavel Machek 2006-09-27 22:58 ` Theodore Tso 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-27 19:11 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Chase Venters Cc: Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Chase Venters wrote: > > The reason a clause such as that will work is that people have no natural > right to redistribute Linux. Right. Any copyright license will basically say "You can distribute this assuming you do so-and-so" and a contract can actually extend on that and also limit you in other ways than just distribution, ie you can sat "You can buy this, but you cannot legally benchmark it" However, none of that actually extends your "derived work" in any way. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 19:11 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 12:42 ` Pavel Machek 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Pavel Machek @ 2006-09-29 12:42 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Chase Venters, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Hi! > > The reason a clause such as that will work is that people have no natural > > right to redistribute Linux. > > Right. Any copyright license will basically say > > "You can distribute this assuming you do so-and-so" > > and a contract can actually extend on that and also limit you in other > ways than just distribution, ie you can sat > > "You can buy this, but you cannot legally benchmark it" > > However, none of that actually extends your "derived work" in any way. You are right, of course, but you can affect derived work by stuff such as: You may not copy Linux. As a special exception, you may copy/distribute Linux if you never copied Tolstoy before. That would probably work.... in cases like Tivo anyway. Pavel -- Thanks for all the (sleeping) penguins. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 18:37 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-27 19:11 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-27 22:58 ` Theodore Tso 2006-09-27 23:16 ` Chase Venters 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Theodore Tso @ 2006-09-27 22:58 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Chase Venters Cc: Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 01:37:37PM -0500, Chase Venters wrote: > I think one thing that should have happened a _lot_ sooner is that you and > others should have made clear to the startled community that you object > precisely to the anti-Tivoization clause, not because of any technical > reason or interpretation but because you don't see anything wrong with > Tivo's use of Linux. It would have been nice but totally optional to > engage in dialogue with the FSF. But slandering them about their license > development process, or their intentions with regard to using Linux as > leverage, is counterproductive whether true or not. This has been made clear to Eben and the FSF, for a long time. The FSF has simply chosen not to listen to Linus and other members of the kernel community. In fact, I've never seen any interest in a dialogue, just a pseudo-dialogue where "input is solicited", and then as near as far as I can tell, at least on the anti-Tivo issue, has been simply ignored. But in any case, it should not have come as a surprise and should not have startled anyone. Regards, - Ted ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 22:58 ` Theodore Tso @ 2006-09-27 23:16 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-28 0:03 ` Neil Brown ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Chase Venters @ 2006-09-27 23:16 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Theodore Tso Cc: Chase Venters, Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Theodore Tso wrote: > On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 01:37:37PM -0500, Chase Venters wrote: >> I think one thing that should have happened a _lot_ sooner is that you and >> others should have made clear to the startled community that you object >> precisely to the anti-Tivoization clause, not because of any technical >> reason or interpretation but because you don't see anything wrong with >> Tivo's use of Linux. It would have been nice but totally optional to >> engage in dialogue with the FSF. But slandering them about their license >> development process, or their intentions with regard to using Linux as >> leverage, is counterproductive whether true or not. > > This has been made clear to Eben and the FSF, for a long time. The > FSF has simply chosen not to listen to Linus and other members of the > kernel community. In fact, I've never seen any interest in a > dialogue, just a pseudo-dialogue where "input is solicited", and then > as near as far as I can tell, at least on the anti-Tivo issue, has > been simply ignored. But in any case, it should not have come as a > surprise and should not have startled anyone. Perhaps I came off too strong, but I meant what I said, and I'm not only talking about things being made clear with Eben and the FSF. Frankly, I don't know what did or did not happen behind closed doors and it would be wrong of me to make assumptions about that. What I was really addressing here is that the whole F/OSS community exploded over the news that Linux was not adopting the GPLv3. I think it's fair to say that the reason why Linux is not adopting GPLv3 (aside from the very practical matter of gaining the consensus of copyright holders) is that Linus and other top copyright holders don't think what Tivo is doing is wrong. But when that statement first came out, it was almost lost in the noise of "The FSF is not going to listen to us, and what about encryption keys?" The former probably has no place outside of LKML; the latter is the sort of thing you'd bring up at gplv3.fsf.org if you wanted to participate in the process. So a lot of people spent a lot of time thinking Linus was just confused about the license and its intentions and that if they could just show him why he was reading it wrong he'd change his mind. The point I'm trying to make here about what _should_ have happened a lot sooner is that the problem should have been defined in the simplest possible terms: "We don't want to cut off Tivo. We don't think they are in the wrong." Then it boils down to a simple difference in philosophy and everyone can move on. > Regards, > > - Ted Thanks, Chase Venters ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 23:16 ` Chase Venters @ 2006-09-28 0:03 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-28 0:08 ` David Miller 2006-09-28 0:18 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 2:34 ` Gene Heskett 2 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Neil Brown @ 2006-09-28 0:03 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Chase Venters Cc: Theodore Tso, Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wednesday September 27, chase.venters@clientec.com wrote: > > What I was really addressing here is that the whole F/OSS community > exploded over the news that Linux was not adopting the GPLv3. I think it's > fair to say that the reason why Linux is not adopting GPLv3 (aside from > the very practical matter of gaining the consensus of copyright holders) > is that Linus and other top copyright holders don't think what Tivo is > doing is wrong. But when that statement first came out, it was almost lost > in the noise of "The FSF is not going to listen to us, and what about > encryption keys?" The former probably has no place outside of LKML; the > latter is the sort of thing you'd bring up at gplv3.fsf.org if you wanted > to participate in the process. I don't think that anyone is saying that what Tivo is doing isn't wrong. What is being said is that the license is the wrong place to try to stop this sort of behaviour. It is too broad a brush. There are a number of different reasons for wanting to use technological measures for stopping people from re-purposing a device and they aren't necessarily all bad. Do we want our code to be prohibited from being used in all of these cases? Some people think not. But I wonder if GPLv3 will really stop Tivo.... I just read it again and saw - at the end of section 1. The Corresponding Source need not include anything that users can regenerate automatically from other parts of the Corresponding Source. So if Tivo included the code they used to generate the key, then they don't need to include the key itself :-) Users can regenerate the key form that program. Not sure how long it will take though. NeilBrown ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 0:03 ` Neil Brown @ 2006-09-28 0:08 ` David Miller 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: David Miller @ 2006-09-28 0:08 UTC (permalink / raw) To: neilb Cc: chase.venters, tytso, torvalds, alan, jengelh, sipan, James.Bottomley, linux-kernel From: Neil Brown <neilb@suse.de> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 10:03:57 +1000 > I don't think that anyone is saying that what Tivo is doing isn't > wrong. What is being said is that the license is the wrong place to > try to stop this sort of behaviour. It is too broad a brush. I totally agree. The poll was a stated position on the gplv3, it didn't attempt to represent the positions on the core issues of patents and DRM. I personally do have a problem with what Tivo does with code that I wrote, yet I also recognize that a license might not be the best place to deal with this. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 23:16 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-28 0:03 ` Neil Brown @ 2006-09-28 0:18 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 0:54 ` Patrick McFarland ` (3 more replies) 2006-09-28 2:34 ` Gene Heskett 2 siblings, 4 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 0:18 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Chase Venters Cc: Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Chase Venters wrote: > On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Theodore Tso wrote: > > > > This has been made clear to Eben and the FSF, for a long time. The > > FSF has simply chosen not to listen to Linus and other members of the > > kernel community. In fact, I've never seen any interest in a > > dialogue, just a pseudo-dialogue where "input is solicited", and then > > as near as far as I can tell, at least on the anti-Tivo issue, has > > been simply ignored. But in any case, it should not have come as a > > surprise and should not have startled anyone. > > Perhaps I came off too strong, but I meant what I said, and I'm not only > talking about things being made clear with Eben and the FSF. Frankly, I don't > know what did or did not happen behind closed doors and it would be wrong of > me to make assumptions about that. I think a lot of people may be confused because what they see is (a) Something that has been brewing for a _loong_ time. There has been the FSF position, and there has been the open source position, and the two have been very clearly separated. At the same time, both camps have been trying to be somewhat polite, as long as the fact that the split does clearly exist doesn't actually _matter_. So, for example, the GPLv2 has been acceptable to all parties (which is what I argue is its great strength), and practically you've not actually had to care. In fact, most programmers _still_ probably don't care. A lot of people use a license not because they "chose" it, but because they work on a project where somebody else chose the license for them originally. This, btw, is probably why some things matter to me more than many other kernel developers. I'm the only one who really had an actual choice of licenses. Relatively, very few other people ever had to even make that choice, and as such, I suspect that a number of people just feel that it wasn't their choice in the first place and that they don't care that deeply. Ted is actually likely one of the very few people who were actually involved when the choice of GPLv2 happened, and is in the almost unique situation of probably having an email from me asking if he was ok with switching from my original license to the GPLv2. Ted? So we have something that has been going on for more than a decade (the actual name of "Open Source" happened in 1998, but it wasn't like the _issues_ with the FSF hadn't been brewing before that too), but that has mostly been under the surface, because there has been no _practical_ reason to react to it. (b) This tension and the standpoints of the two sides has definitely _not_ been unknown to the people involved. Trust me, the FSF knew very well that the kernel standpoint on the GPLv2 was that Tivo was legally in the right, and that it was all ok in that sense. Now, a number of people didn't necessarily _like_ what Tivo does or how they did it, but the whole rabid "this must be stopped" thing was from the FSF side. > What I was really addressing here is that the whole F/OSS community > exploded over the news that Linux was not adopting the GPLv3. Not really. It wasn't even news. The kernel has had the "v2 only" thing explicitly for more than half a decade, and I have personally tried to make it very clear that even before that, it never had anything else (ie it very much _had_ a specific license version, just by including the damn thing, and the kernel has _never_ had the "v2 or any later" language). So legally, Linux has generally been v2-only since 1992, and just to head off any confusion, it's even been very explicit for the last five years. So what's the "news" really? I'll tell you what the news is: the FSF was going along, _as_if_ they had the support of not just their own supporters, but the OSS community too, even though they knew _full_well_ what the differences were. In fact, a lot of people have felt that they've been riding of the coat-tails of Linux - without ever realizing that one of the things that made Linux and Open Source so successful was exactly the fact that we did _not_ buy into the rhetoric and the extremism. Claiming that the FSF didn't know, and that this took them "by surprise" is just ludicrous. Richard Stallman has very vocally complained about the Open Source people having "forgotten" what was important, and has talked about me as if I'm some half-wit who doesn't understand the "real" issue. In fact, they still do that. Trying to explain the "mis-understanding". It was _never_ a mis-understanding. And I think the only surprise here was not how the kernel community felt, but the fact that Richard and Eben had probably counted on us just not standing up for it. THAT is the surprise. The fact that we had the _gall_ to tell them that we didn't agree with them. The fact that we didn't agree was not a surprise at all. > I think it's fair to say that the reason why Linux is not adopting GPLv3 > (aside from the very practical matter of gaining the consensus of > copyright holders) is that Linus and other top copyright holders don't > think what Tivo is doing is wrong. Well, I personally believe that Tivo did everything right, but in the interest of full disclosure, sure, some people even _do_ belive that what Tivo is doing is wrong, but pretty much everybody agrees that trying to stop them is _worse_ than the thing it tries to fix. Because the even _deeper_ rift between the FSF and the whole "Open Source" community is not over "Tivo" or any particular detail like that, but between "practical and useful" and "ideology". And no, it's not a black-and-white issue. There are all kinds of shades of gray, and "practical" and "ideology" aren't even mutually incompatible! It's just that sometimes they say different things. And yes, I personally exploded, but hey, it's been brewing for over a decade. Let me over-react sometimes. I'm still always right ;) Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 0:18 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 0:54 ` Patrick McFarland 2006-09-28 3:15 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 1:35 ` Al Viro ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Patrick McFarland @ 2006-09-28 0:54 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wednesday 27 September 2006 20:18, Linus Torvalds wrote: > I think a lot of people may be confused because what they see is > > (a) Something that has been brewing for a _loong_ time. There has been > the FSF position, and there has been the open source position, and > the two have been very clearly separated. But whats wrong with that? The FSF is a "project" (or really, a group of projects, because some FSF projects don't agree with the FSF position either), it isn't them official voice of the community. The open source community (which, of course, the FSF hates the term "open source" because it undermines their authority) is made up of many projects, each with their own official line. RMS has his, you have yours, GNOME has theirs, KDE has theirs, and so on. > At the same time, both camps have been trying to be somewhat polite, > as long as the fact that the split does clearly exist doesn't > actually _matter_. I agree. It doesn't matter because everyone is free to use whatever version they want of the GPL. Of course, people do also recognize that the GPL2 vs GPL3 argument is just a more subtle version of whats been going on for years with BSD vs GPL. > So, for example, the GPLv2 has been acceptable to all parties (which > is what I argue is its great strength), and practically you've not > actually had to care. In fact, most programmers _still_ probably > don't care. A lot of people use a license not because they "chose" > it, but because they work on a project where somebody else chose the > license for them originally. Programmers don't care because we aren't lawyers. I mean, few things are stated so simply, but lets face it, law is boring to quite a few geeks, and the intersection between geeks who code and geeks who law is very small. > (b) This tension and the standpoints of the two sides has definitely > _not_ been unknown to the people involved. Trust me, the FSF knew > very well that the kernel standpoint on the GPLv2 was that Tivo was > legally in the right, and that it was all ok in that sense. > > Now, a number of people didn't necessarily _like_ what Tivo does or > how they did it, but the whole rabid "this must be stopped" thing was > from the FSF side. Which is why I said above, the FSF is not the official voice of the community, but instead one of many, and also no longer one of the loudest. > > What I was really addressing here is that the whole F/OSS community > > exploded over the news that Linux was not adopting the GPLv3. > > Not really. It wasn't even news. The kernel has had the "v2 only" thing > explicitly for more than half a decade, and I have personally tried to > make it very clear that even before that, it never had anything else (ie > it very much _had_ a specific license version, just by including the damn > thing, and the kernel has _never_ had the "v2 or any later" language). Wasn't that just to prevent the FSF from going evil and juping all your code? > In fact, a lot of people have felt that they've been riding of the > coat-tails of Linux - without ever realizing that one of the things that > made Linux and Open Source so successful was exactly the fact that we did > _not_ buy into the rhetoric and the extremism. The only problem is that, alternatively, the FOSS movement was so strong because of RMS's kool-aid everyone drank. The community has teeth, and this is in partly because of the actions of the FSF. We defend ourselves when we need to. Its just that, at least with the Tivo case, that the defense went a tad too far. > Claiming that the FSF didn't know, and that this took them "by surprise" > is just ludicrous. Richard Stallman has very vocally complained about the > Open Source people having "forgotten" what was important, and has talked > about me as if I'm some half-wit who doesn't understand the "real" issue. The real issue, in my opinion, is that RMS found out that he no longer leads the community, and his power base is a lot smaller than it used to be. The FSF itself is a lot less relevant than it was 10 years ago. > In fact, they still do that. Trying to explain the "mis-understanding". Ego does wonders. > Because the even _deeper_ rift between the FSF and the whole "Open Source" > community is not over "Tivo" or any particular detail like that, but > between "practical and useful" and "ideology". I agree. I totally agree. The rift exists _not_ because the OSS community wants to do its own thing, but because the FSF are no longer the overlords of the Bazaar that they thought they were. > Linus Also, I expect to get flamed for what I've written above, especially from RMS in some form or another. Thats fine. The FSF has given the community a lot, and us, the community, has given a lot in return. That doesn't, however, give RMS the right to be some sort of King. The OSS community, instead, is a form of a democracy, and you vote with your code. Linus, you voted with your code. -- Patrick McFarland || http://AdTerrasPerAspera.com "Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." -- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 0:54 ` Patrick McFarland @ 2006-09-28 3:15 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 3:47 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 17:16 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 0 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 3:15 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Patrick McFarland Cc: Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Patrick McFarland wrote: > On Wednesday 27 September 2006 20:18, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > I think a lot of people may be confused because what they see is > > > > (a) Something that has been brewing for a _loong_ time. There has been > > the FSF position, and there has been the open source position, and > > the two have been very clearly separated. > > But whats wrong with that? The FSF is a "project" (or really, a group > of projects, because some FSF projects don't agree with the FSF > position either), it isn't them official voice of the community. Right, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with having two positions. In many ways, I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying that we should _expect_ people to have different opinions. Everybody has their own opinion anyway, and expecting people not have different opinions (especially programmers, who are a rather opinionated lot in the first place) is just not realistic. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a very wide consensus among a very varied developer base. In fact, I think that's _great_. And the reason I'm speaking out against the GPLv3 is that it is trying to "sort the chaff from the wheat". The FSF is apparently not happy with a wide community appeal - they want _their_ standpoint to be the one that matters. I have all through the "discussion" tried to explain that the great thing about the GPLv2 is that it allows all these people with totally different ideals to come together. It doesn't have to be "perfect" for any particular group - it's very perfection comes not from it's language, but the very fact that it's _acceptable_ to a very wide group. When the FSF tries to "narrow it down", they kill the whole point of it. The license suddenly is not a thing to get around and enjoy, it's become a weapon to be used to attack the enemy. Here in the US, the only watchable TV news program is "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. One of his fairly recurring themes is about how US politics is destroyed by all these passionate and vocal extremists, and he asks whether there can ever be a really passionate moderate. "Can you be passionate about the middle road?" Dammit, I want to be a "Passionate Moderate". I'm passionate about just people being able to work together on the same license, without this extremism. So here's my _real_ cry for freedom: "It's _ok_ to be commercial and do it just for money. And yes, you can even have a FSF badge, and carry Stallmans manifesto around everywhere you go. And yes, we accept people who like cryptography, and we accept people who aren't our friends. You don't have to believe exactly like we believe!" And for fifteen years, the GPLv2 has been a great umbrella for that. The FSF is throwing that away, because they don't _want_ to work with people who don't share their ideals. > > At the same time, both camps have been trying to be somewhat polite, > > as long as the fact that the split does clearly exist doesn't > > actually _matter_. > > I agree. It doesn't matter because everyone is free to use whatever > version they want of the GPL. Of course, people do also recognize that > the GPL2 vs GPL3 argument is just a more subtle version of whats been > going on for years with BSD vs GPL. That's part of what really gets my goat. I spent too much time arguing with crazy BSD people who tried to tell me that _their_ license was "true freedom". The FSF shills echo those old BSD cries closely - even though they are on the exact opposite side of the spectrum on the "freedom" part. I hated BSD people who just couldn't shut up about their complaining about my choice of license back then (the good old BSD/MIT vs GPL flamewars). > > In fact, most programmers _still_ probably > > don't care. A lot of people use a license not because they "chose" > > it, but because they work on a project where somebody else chose the > > license for them originally. > > Programmers don't care because we aren't lawyers. I mean, few things > are stated so simply, but lets face it, law is boring to quite a few > geeks, and the intersection between geeks who code and geeks who law > is very small. I think a _lot_ of programmers care very deeply indeed about the licenses. I certainly do. I wouldn't want to be a lawyer, but I care about how my code gets used. That said, I don't care how everybody _elses_ code gets used, which is apparently one of the differences between me and rms. > > Not really. It wasn't even news. The kernel has had the "v2 only" thing > > explicitly for more than half a decade, and I have personally tried to > > make it very clear that even before that, it never had anything else (ie > > it very much _had_ a specific license version, just by including the damn > > thing, and the kernel has _never_ had the "v2 or any later" language). > > Wasn't that just to prevent the FSF from going evil and juping all your code? Well, initially it wasn't even a conscious "I don't trust the FSF" thing. But when I chose the GPL (v2, back then) I chose _that_ license. There was absolutely no need for me to say "or later". If the GPLv2 ever really turns out to be a bad license, we can re-license _then_. Yes, it would be really really painful, but I think the "or later" wording is worse. How can you _ever_ sign anything sight unseen? That's just stupid, and that's totally regardless of any worries about the FSF. Later, when I did start having doubts about the FSF, I just made it even more clear, since some people wondered. > The only problem is that, alternatively, the FOSS movement was so > strong because of RMS's kool-aid everyone drank. The community has > teeth, and this is in partly because of the actions of the FSF. We > defend ourselves when we need to. > > Its just that, at least with the Tivo case, that the defense went a tad too > far. I think the FSF has always alienated as many (or more) people as they befriended, but maybe that's just me. I was looking for old newsgroup threads about this earlier in the week, and noticed somebody in the BSD camp saying that I was using the GPL, but that I wasn't as radical as rms. And iirc, that was from 1993, when Linux was virtually unknown. So I think that not being too extreme is a _good_ thing. It's how you can get more people involved. So everybody - join the "Passionate Moderate" movement, even if you're not in the US. We're not passionate about any of the issues, we are just _really_ fed up with extreme opinions! And we're not afraid to say so! [ The really sad part is: that was only _somewhat_ in jest. Dammit, sometimes I think we really need that party! ] Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 3:15 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 3:47 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 4:13 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 4:39 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-28 17:16 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 1 sibling, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-28 3:47 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Patrick McFarland, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 2006-09-27 at 20:15 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > So everybody - join the "Passionate Moderate" movement, even if you're not > in the US. We're not passionate about any of the issues, we are just > _really_ fed up with extreme opinions! And we're not afraid to say so! I hope you understand that "Passionate Moderate" is an oxymoron. And I do not believe RMS is a commie! To me he is quite a moderate figure (very strong principals and no diplomatic skills at all, but it does not mean he is an extremist). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 3:47 ` Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-28 4:13 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 5:05 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 4:39 ` Chase Venters 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 4:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Sergey Panov Cc: Patrick McFarland, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Sergey Panov wrote: > > I hope you understand that "Passionate Moderate" is an oxymoron. No. It's a joke. But it's a sad, serious, one. You really don't want it explained to you. It's too painful. > And I do not believe RMS is a commie! Ehh. Nobody called him a commie. I said he was an extremist (and tastes differ, but I think most people would agree). And he _has_ written a manifesto. I'm not kidding. Really. "How soon they forget.." One thing that I have realized during some of these discussions is that a _lot_ of people have literally grown up during all the "Open Source" years, and really don't know anything about rms, GNU, or the reason Open Source split from Free Software. I'm feeling like an old fart, just because I still remember the BSD license wars, and rms' manifesto, and all this crap. For you young whippersnappers out there, let me tell you how it was when I was young.. We had to walk uphill both ways [ "In snow! Five feet deep!" "No! Ten feet!" "Calm down boys, I'm telling the story" ] And we had all these rabid GPL haters that were laughing at us, and telling us you could never make software under the GPL because none of the commercial people would ever touch it and all programmers need to eat and feed their kids.. [ "Tell them about when you killed a grizzly bear with your teeth, gramps!" "Shh, Tommy, that's a different story, shush now" ] And Richard Stallman wrote a manifesto. Thank God we still have google. "GNU manifesto" still finds it. > To me he is quite a moderate figure I'd hate to meet the people you call extreme. > (very strong principals and no diplomatic skills at all, but it does not > mean he is an extremist). I have nothing funny to say here. I was going to make a joke about the principals, but that's just low. It's "principle". A "principal" is something totally different. Anyway, I'd clearly in need of a drink, as all my "mad debating skillz" are clearly leaving me, and I just find myself making all these silly comments. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 4:13 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 5:05 ` Sergey Panov 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-28 5:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Patrick McFarland, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 2006-09-27 at 21:13 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Sergey Panov wrote: > > > > I hope you understand that "Passionate Moderate" is an oxymoron. > > No. It's a joke. > > But it's a sad, serious, one. You really don't want it explained to you. > It's too painful. > > > And I do not believe RMS is a commie! > > Ehh. Nobody called him a commie. > > I said he was an extremist (and tastes differ, but I think most people > would agree). And he _has_ written a manifesto. I'm not kidding. Really. > > "How soon they forget.." > I appreciate it was not : "Ein Gespenst geht um in Europa ... " > One thing that I have realized during some of these discussions is that a > _lot_ of people have literally grown up during all the "Open Source" > years, and really don't know anything about rms, GNU, or the reason Open > Source split from Free Software. > > I'm feeling like an old fart, just because I still remember the BSD > license wars, and rms' manifesto, and all this crap. > > For you young whippersnappers out there, let me tell you how it was when I > was young.. > FYI: I am using (in/on my home network) nothing but YOUR kernel with GNU tools since 1993. I was A PhD student at the unnamed US university at that time. > We had to walk uphill both ways > > [ "In snow! Five feet deep!" > "No! Ten feet!" > "Calm down boys, I'm telling the story" ] > > And we had all these rabid GPL haters that were laughing at us, and > telling us you could never make software under the GPL because none of the > commercial people would ever touch it and all programmers need to eat and > feed their kids.. > > [ "Tell them about when you killed a grizzly bear with your teeth, > gramps!" > > "Shh, Tommy, that's a different story, shush now" ] It is nice to know you are not aware of the "grizzly? no, dushily" Russian jock, people in Republic of Georgia might not appreciate. > And Richard Stallman wrote a manifesto. > > Thank God we still have google. "GNU manifesto" still finds it. www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html. The funniest sentence is the first one: "... the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free to everyone who can use it." > > To me he is quite a moderate figure > > I'd hate to meet the people you call extreme. You are a happy individual from a happy country. Some of us were unfortunate to be bourn in a less friendly environment. > > (very strong principals and no diplomatic skills at all, but it does not > > mean he is an extremist). > > I have nothing funny to say here. > > I was going to make a joke about the principals, but that's just low. It's > "principle". A "principal" is something totally different. > > Anyway, I'd clearly in need of a drink, as all my "mad debating skillz" > are clearly leaving me, and I just find myself making all these silly > comments. > > Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 3:47 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 4:13 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 4:39 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-28 5:13 ` Trond Myklebust ` (3 more replies) 1 sibling, 4 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Chase Venters @ 2006-09-28 4:39 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Sergey Panov Cc: Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wednesday 27 September 2006 22:46, Sergey Panov wrote: > On Wed, 2006-09-27 at 20:15 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > So everybody - join the "Passionate Moderate" movement, even if you're > > not in the US. We're not passionate about any of the issues, we are just > > _really_ fed up with extreme opinions! And we're not afraid to say so! > > I hope you understand that "Passionate Moderate" is an oxymoron. And I > do not believe RMS is a commie! To me he is quite a moderate figure > (very strong principals and no diplomatic skills at all, but it does not > mean he is an extremist). After lots of careful consideration, I think it is fair to say that Stallman vigorously and extremely promotes and stands by his ideals, but the ideals he stands for aren't all that radical or extreme. That is the difference, isn't it? Wouldn't we all love free software running on free hardware, supporting free culture and talking over free spectrum? The biggest difference I've seen in the movements is that one aims to strike a conservative and functional balance while the other is always trying to push the envelope. I sympathize with Richard on his avoidance of "open-source". I don't necessarily take the same view, but I understand that his big concern is that the message he feels is important will be lost. I also think some of the things I've heard from the "open-source" side are too extreme - take, for instance, ESR's idea that we don't need the GPL license at all. That sounds like a nice world he's living in, but I'm not sure we're all on the same planet yet. The final GPLv3 may indeed go too far for many open-source supporters. But then again, it is the FSF's license, and it should at least not surprise anyone if they are more concerned with the ideals of the license rather than current market realities. Market conditions change; ideals generally don't. And I think society needs both kinds of people. We need strong leaders like Linus to coordinate the effort of moving solar systems and strong idealists like Richard to inspire minds. I'm not sure Linus or Richard would admit this, but I speculate that in a world where only one of them existed, this community would have accomplished far less than the one in which they both act. This is really why I got upset when I saw all the crap in the press over the last few days. I think both sides have pissed the other off to the point that some of us are actively forgetting that we're just, as Eben once said, "singing slightly different lyrics to slightly different music, and it's dissonant, and it jars us..." Some amount of contention is naturally good, so long as it does not undermine the great ends both movements are achieving. When our flamewars spill out into the industry press, it's just likely to make both sides look crazy. I wish that most people who choose to take sides could see (and acknowledge!) the real value the other side has, even if they don't agree with the approach or phraseology. And I wish that more of us wouldn't pick sides; that we'd be those "Passionate Moderates" Linus just invented. But we do need loud voices! Thanks, Chase Venters ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 4:39 ` Chase Venters @ 2006-09-28 5:13 ` Trond Myklebust 2006-09-28 5:15 ` Jeff Garzik ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Trond Myklebust @ 2006-09-28 5:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Chase Venters Cc: Sergey Panov, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 2006-09-27 at 23:39 -0500, Chase Venters wrote: > On Wednesday 27 September 2006 22:46, Sergey Panov wrote: > > On Wed, 2006-09-27 at 20:15 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > So everybody - join the "Passionate Moderate" movement, even if you're > > > not in the US. We're not passionate about any of the issues, we are just > > > _really_ fed up with extreme opinions! And we're not afraid to say so! > > > > I hope you understand that "Passionate Moderate" is an oxymoron. And I > > do not believe RMS is a commie! To me he is quite a moderate figure > > (very strong principals and no diplomatic skills at all, but it does not > > mean he is an extremist). > > After lots of careful consideration, I think it is fair to say that Stallman > vigorously and extremely promotes and stands by his ideals, but the ideals he > stands for aren't all that radical or extreme. That is the difference, isn't > it? Wouldn't we all love free software running on free hardware, supporting > free culture and talking over free spectrum? The biggest difference I've seen > in the movements is that one aims to strike a conservative and functional > balance while the other is always trying to push the envelope. If that were true, then why is he trying to restrict people's freedom of use? Face it: the GPLv3 is basically the GPLv2 + a load of restrictions on how you are allowed to use the software. It is building on the same traditions as the concepts of "Dictatorship of the proletariat" or "PATRIOT act" whereby you are requested to give up a set of existing freedoms in return for nebulous promises of a rosy future. It is quite possible to fight for your ideals without compromising on existing freedoms. That is what the FSF has failed to recognise. Cheers, Trond ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 4:39 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-28 5:13 ` Trond Myklebust @ 2006-09-28 5:15 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-28 5:27 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 13:55 ` Lennart Sorensen 2006-09-28 18:34 ` Linus Torvalds 3 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-28 5:15 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Chase Venters Cc: Sergey Panov, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Chase Venters wrote: > I sympathize with Richard on his avoidance of "open-source". I don't > necessarily take the same view, but I understand that his big concern is that > the message he feels is important will be lost. I also think some of the > things I've heard from the "open-source" side are too extreme - take, for > instance, ESR's idea that we don't need the GPL license at all. That sounds > like a nice world he's living in, but I'm not sure we're all on the same > planet yet. ESR is a nutcase too. > The final GPLv3 may indeed go too far for many open-source supporters. But > then again, it is the FSF's license, and it should at least not surprise > anyone if they are more concerned with the ideals of the license rather than > current market realities. Market conditions change; ideals generally don't. As long as you can admit that FSF is divorced from reality... Jeff ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 5:15 ` Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-28 5:27 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 5:34 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-28 7:30 ` Al Viro 0 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-28 5:27 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jeff Garzik Cc: Chase Venters, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Thu, 2006-09-28 at 01:15 -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote: > Chase Venters wrote: > > I sympathize with Richard on his avoidance of "open-source". I don't > > necessarily take the same view, but I understand that his big concern is that > > the message he feels is important will be lost. I also think some of the > > things I've heard from the "open-source" side are too extreme - take, for > > instance, ESR's idea that we don't need the GPL license at all. That sounds > > like a nice world he's living in, but I'm not sure we're all on the same > > planet yet. > > ESR is a nutcase too. How did you manage to figure it out? > > The final GPLv3 may indeed go too far for many open-source supporters. But > > then again, it is the FSF's license, and it should at least not surprise > > anyone if they are more concerned with the ideals of the license rather than > > current market realities. Market conditions change; ideals generally don't. > > As long as you can admit that FSF is divorced from reality... ??? Ideals are always divorced from reality. But some shape it, and some are irrelevant. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 5:27 ` Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-28 5:34 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-28 7:30 ` Al Viro 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-28 5:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Sergey Panov Cc: Chase Venters, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Sergey Panov wrote: > On Thu, 2006-09-28 at 01:15 -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote: >> Chase Venters wrote: >>> The final GPLv3 may indeed go too far for many open-source supporters. But >>> then again, it is the FSF's license, and it should at least not surprise >>> anyone if they are more concerned with the ideals of the license rather than >>> current market realities. Market conditions change; ideals generally don't. >> As long as you can admit that FSF is divorced from reality... > > ??? Ideals are always divorced from reality. But some shape it, and some > are irrelevant. Since we have to deal with the reality of the license, I guess that means GPLv3 is irrelevant. Jeff ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 5:27 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 5:34 ` Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-28 7:30 ` Al Viro 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Al Viro @ 2006-09-28 7:30 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Sergey Panov Cc: Jeff Garzik, Chase Venters, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 01:27:03AM -0400, Sergey Panov wrote: > On Thu, 2006-09-28 at 01:15 -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote: > > Chase Venters wrote: > > > I sympathize with Richard on his avoidance of "open-source". I don't > > > necessarily take the same view, but I understand that his big concern is that > > > the message he feels is important will be lost. I also think some of the > > > things I've heard from the "open-source" side are too extreme - take, for > > > instance, ESR's idea that we don't need the GPL license at all. That sounds > > > like a nice world he's living in, but I'm not sure we're all on the same > > > planet yet. > > > > ESR is a nutcase too. > > How did you manage to figure it out? Well, you tell me... What would you say about the following kind of paper: * it is generally assumed that conditions X, Y and Z are needed to get the result with property P. * in experiment [ref] P had been obtained despite the lack of all aforementioned conditions. * author will attempt to formulate the conditions sufficient to achieve P, explaining the results of said experiment. * hypothetical conditions described, their applicability to experiment in question discussed. * author has attempted to test his hypothetis. * description of experiment, strongly implying that P has been achieved as the result. * conclusions. The trouble being, results of experiment are available and P is profoundly _not_ observed. Moreover, if you start looking at the description in the paper, you find a serious misdirection; what it really shows is P', which is considerably weaker than P. The differences are systematically glossed over; experiment declared a success despite being a definite proof that stated conditions are _NOT_ sufficient. Conclusions would be highly speculative even if experiment had been successful. No discussion of alternative explanations for the original results is to be found anywhere in the paper. Paper is widely published on the web and is used for self-promotion worthy of Prof. Vybegallo. That's ESR for you. The paper in qustion is "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". P is "coherent and stable system". ESR's experiment: fetchmail. Source of that animal (and paper itself) are easily found. Have fun. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 4:39 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-28 5:13 ` Trond Myklebust 2006-09-28 5:15 ` Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-28 13:55 ` Lennart Sorensen 2006-09-28 14:19 ` DervishD 2006-09-28 15:38 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 18:34 ` Linus Torvalds 3 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Lennart Sorensen @ 2006-09-28 13:55 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Chase Venters Cc: Sergey Panov, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 11:39:04PM -0500, Chase Venters wrote: > This is really why I got upset when I saw all the crap in the press over the > last few days. I think both sides have pissed the other off to the point that > some of us are actively forgetting that we're just, as Eben once > said, "singing slightly different lyrics to slightly different music, and > it's dissonant, and it jars us..." > > Some amount of contention is naturally good, so long as it does not undermine > the great ends both movements are achieving. When our flamewars spill out > into the industry press, it's just likely to make both sides look crazy. I > wish that most people who choose to take sides could see (and acknowledge!) > the real value the other side has, even if they don't agree with the approach > or phraseology. And I wish that more of us wouldn't pick sides; that we'd be > those "Passionate Moderates" Linus just invented. But we do need loud voices! I wonder if perhaps the solution should be that the GPLv3 draft should be renamed to something else to allow RMS to create his new license that does exactly what he wants it to do, without hijacking existing GPLv2 code using a license that in many people's opinion is NOT in the spirit of the GPLv2 (which it could be argued overrides the "or later" part of the license). The current GPLv3 draft may be in the spirit of what RMS intended the GPLv2 to be, but it isn't in the spirit of what the GPLv2 says and does. No one has a problem with people making new licenses. People have a problem with people making new licenses and wanting to retroactively replace existing licenses with a new and very different license. Now what would be a good name for the GPLv3? GRLv1 (GNU Restricted License v1) perhaps. :) That is essentially what it is doing. Restricting what you can do with the code. -- Len Sorensen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 13:55 ` Lennart Sorensen @ 2006-09-28 14:19 ` DervishD 2006-09-28 14:40 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 14:51 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Simon Oosthoek 2006-09-28 15:38 ` Linus Torvalds 1 sibling, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: DervishD @ 2006-09-28 14:19 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lennart Sorensen Cc: Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Hi Lennart :) * Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> dixit: > I wonder if perhaps the solution should be that the GPLv3 draft > should be renamed to something else to allow RMS to create his new > license that does exactly what he wants it to do, without hijacking > existing GPLv2 code using a license that in many people's opinion > is NOT in the spirit of the GPLv2 (which it could be argued > overrides the "or later" part of the license). That's quite curious, because my wife (who doesn't have a great software background and that knows FOSS and GPL through me) said exactly the same when I told her yesterday the problem that people like me, who has released code under GPLv2, may face if GPLv3 is applied retroactively to every software that says "or any later version". She said that of course anybody has the right of making new licenses, but that, as far as she could tell, the new license shouldn't be named "GPL" because it was very different from what we now call "GPL". Of course her vision may be highly biased by what I told her, but since I still don't have a clear position about all this GPLv2 vs. GPLv3 issue, I don't think that the bias is so high. Probably the renaming is just common sense and will avoid ALL problems. People like me are concerned only because all GPLv2 that doesn't state otherwise will be released automagically under GPLv3 as soon as the latest draft is made the official version. Otherwise, I wouldn't give a hump about any new license until I have the time to read it and see if I like it. Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado -- Linux Registered User 88736 | http://www.dervishd.net It's my PC and I'll cry if I want to... RAmen! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 14:19 ` DervishD @ 2006-09-28 14:40 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 14:59 ` DervishD ` (2 more replies) 2006-09-28 14:51 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Simon Oosthoek 1 sibling, 3 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jörn Engel @ 2006-09-28 14:40 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Thu, 28 September 2006 16:19:32 +0200, DervishD wrote: > > Probably the renaming is just common sense and will avoid ALL > problems. People like me are concerned only because all GPLv2 that > doesn't state otherwise will be released automagically under GPLv3 as > soon as the latest draft is made the official version. Otherwise, I > wouldn't give a hump about any new license until I have the time to > read it and see if I like it. In my very uninformed opinion, your problem is a very minor one. Your "v2 or later" code won't get the license v2 removed, it will become dual "v2 or v3" licensed. And assuming that v3 only adds restrictions and doesn't allow the licensee any additional rights, you, as the author, shouldn't have to worry much. The problem arises later. As with BSD/GPL dual licensed code, where anyone can take the code and relicense it as either BSD or GPL, "v2 or v3" code can get relicensed as v3 only. At this point, nothing is lost, as the identical "v2 or v3" code still exists. But with further development on the "v3 only" branch, you have a fork. And one that doesn't just require technical means to get merged back, but has legal restrictions. And I assume (careful, I'm _really_ uninformed here) the FSF is well aware of that and wants a one-way compatibility between v2 and v3. Any v2 code can be picked up by a v3 project, but not the other way around. v3 projects have a clear evolutionary advantage over v2. And here the kernel wording with "v2 only" in the kernel is interesting. It turns a one-way compatibility into no compatibility at all. So the evolutionary advantage is lost, as it only exists through the "v2 or later" term. Jörn -- Homo Sapiens is a goal, not a description. -- unknown ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 14:40 ` Jörn Engel @ 2006-09-28 14:59 ` DervishD 2006-09-28 15:04 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 2:29 ` David Schwartz 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: DervishD @ 2006-09-28 14:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jörn Engel Cc: Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Hi Jörn :) * Jörn Engel <joern@wohnheim.fh-wedel.de> dixit: > On Thu, 28 September 2006 16:19:32 +0200, DervishD wrote: > > Probably the renaming is just common sense and will avoid ALL > > problems. People like me are concerned only because all GPLv2 that > > doesn't state otherwise will be released automagically under GPLv3 as > > soon as the latest draft is made the official version. Otherwise, I > > wouldn't give a hump about any new license until I have the time to > > read it and see if I like it. > > In my very uninformed opinion, your problem is a very minor one. > Your "v2 or later" code won't get the license v2 removed, it will > become dual "v2 or v3" licensed. And assuming that v3 only adds > restrictions and doesn't allow the licensee any additional rights, > you, as the author, shouldn't have to worry much. Really my problem is that I still don't fully understand neither the new license nor the possible effects, so just in case I want to decide if I want my code dual licensed or not. It's not a big worry, I know, but I prefer things that way. > The problem arises later. As with BSD/GPL dual licensed code, > where anyone can take the code and relicense it as either BSD or > GPL, "v2 or v3" code can get relicensed as v3 only. At this point, > nothing is lost, as the identical "v2 or v3" code still exists. > But with further development on the "v3 only" branch, you have a > fork. And one that doesn't just require technical means to get > merged back, but has legal restrictions. See? I didn't have seen things from this point of view, and that's the kind of problems I want to be aware of before allowing my code to be dual licensed. > And here the kernel wording with "v2 only" in the kernel is > interesting. It turns a one-way compatibility into no > compatibility at all. So the evolutionary advantage is lost, as it > only exists through the "v2 or later" term. Well, in my code that's exactly what I want regarding licenses. Probably GPLv3 is better (I don't know yet) and probably GPLv4 will be the best license out there, but I prefer to be precise about what license do I use. Thanks for your explanations :) Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado -- Linux Registered User 88736 | http://www.dervishd.net It's my PC and I'll cry if I want to... RAmen! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 14:40 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 14:59 ` DervishD @ 2006-09-28 15:04 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 15:20 ` Jörn Engel ` (3 more replies) 2006-09-29 2:29 ` David Schwartz 2 siblings, 4 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 15:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jörn Engel Cc: Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel [-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 3303 bytes --] On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Jörn Engel wrote: > > And I assume (careful, I'm _really_ uninformed here) the FSF is well > aware of that and wants a one-way compatibility between v2 and v3. > Any v2 code can be picked up by a v3 project, but not the other way > around. v3 projects have a clear evolutionary advantage over v2. A _real_ v2 project doesn't have that problem. In fact, I'm a huge believer in evolution (not in the sense that "it happened" - anybody who doesn't believe that is either uninformed or crazy, but in the sense "the processes of evolution are really fundamental, and should probably be at least _thought_ about in pretty much any context"). And I think the v2 is actually _more_ stable in an evolutionary sense (look up Maynard Smith and "ESS" - "Evolutionarily Stable Strategy" - for more ideas about the biological evolution case) exactly because it's more inclusive - it handles more cases. The GPLv3 is a dead end in some areas, exactly because it limits how the project can be used, and as such will automatically limit itself away from some niches. Also, because I believe that it's less "universally acceptable", it has a harder time competing anyway. And the GPLv2 and GPLv3 really _are_ mutually incompatible. There is absolutely nothing in the GPLv2 that is inherently compatible with the GPLv3, and the _only_ way you can mix code is if you explicitly dual-license it. Ie, GPLv2 and GPLv3 are compatible only the same way GPLv2 is compatible with a commercial proprietary license: they are compatible only if you release the code under a dual license. The whole "or later" phrase is legally _no_ different at all from a dual licensing (it's just more open-ended, and you don't know what the "or later" will be, so you're basically saying that you trust the FSF implicitly). > And here the kernel wording with "v2 only" in the kernel is > interesting. No. I _really_ want to clarify this, because so many people get it wrong. Really. The "GPLv2 only" wording is really just a clarification. You don't need it for the project to be "GPLv2 only". If a project says: "This code is licensed under this copyright license" and then goes on to quote the GPLv2, then IT IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE GPLv3! Or if you just say "I license my code under the GPLv2", IT IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE GPLv3. Really. There is zero inherent compatibility. The GPLv2 is written (on purpose) to not be compatible with _anything_ but itself. If you want your code to be compatible with anything else, you have to explicitly say so. In other words, you have to dual-license it, and _keep_ it dual-licensed. > So the evolutionary advantage is lost, as it only exists through the "v2 > or later" term. Exactly. The GPLv3 can _only_ take over a GPLv2 project if the "or later" exists. It should also be pointed out that even a "GPLv2 or later" project can be forked two different ways: you can turn it into a "GPLv3" (with perhaps a "or later" added too) project, but you can _equally_ turn it into a "GPLv2 only" project. In other words, even if the license says "GPLv2 or later", the GPLv3 isn't actually "stronger". The original author dual-licensed it, and expressly told you that he's ok with any GPL version greater than or equal to 2. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 15:04 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 15:20 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 15:31 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 15:46 ` Björn Steinbrink 2006-09-28 15:24 ` Linus Torvalds ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jörn Engel @ 2006-09-28 15:20 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Thu, 28 September 2006 08:04:13 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > No. I _really_ want to clarify this, because so many people get it wrong. > Really. > > The "GPLv2 only" wording is really just a clarification. You don't need it > for the project to be "GPLv2 only". > > If a project says: "This code is licensed under this copyright license" > and then goes on to quote the GPLv2, then IT IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE > GPLv3! > > Or if you just say "I license my code under the GPLv2", IT IS NOT > COMPATIBLE WITH THE GPLv3. And this is an area where I slightly disagree with you. While I would hope that you were right, I can easily imagine a judge ruling that "v2 or later" in the preamble means that the project just signed a blank license of the FSF's discretion. I can just as easily imagine a judge ruling that "simply copying the GPL license verbatim and not removing the 'or later'" clause is does not sufficiently demonstrate the authors intent to dual-license the code. And the likelihood of either ruling will depend on many things, but will never reach 0 or 1. It is a gray area where your legal advice is just as bad as mine and your "GPLv2 only" clarification may in fact be a fork I was talking about. We just don't know until this has been tested in court, which hopefully never happens. Jörn -- Joern's library part 11: http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 15:20 ` Jörn Engel @ 2006-09-28 15:31 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 15:46 ` Björn Steinbrink 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 15:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jörn Engel Cc: Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel [-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 942 bytes --] On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Jörn Engel wrote: > > And this is an area where I slightly disagree with you. While I would > hope that you were right, I can easily imagine a judge ruling that "v2 > or later" in the preamble means that the project just signed a blank > license of the FSF's discretion. I think a judge could rule on almost anything, almost any way. Some judges seem to have less sense than a well-trained rabbit (see the lawsuit about "The Wind Done Gone", where at least one judge blocked it. Judges are just people, after all. So yes, clarifications are good. No question about that. There's a reason I added mine. Just to tell everybody else, and to make sure there's as little gray area in that place as humanly possible. So I'm not saying that "v2 only" language is _bad_. I'm just saying that it shouldn't matter. It's technically enough to just say "GPLv2", and you don't really have to say anything else. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 15:20 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 15:31 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 15:46 ` Björn Steinbrink 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Björn Steinbrink @ 2006-09-28 15:46 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jörn Engel Cc: Linus Torvalds, Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On 2006.09.28 17:20:20 +0200, Jörn Engel wrote: > On Thu, 28 September 2006 08:04:13 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > > No. I _really_ want to clarify this, because so many people get it wrong. > > Really. > > > > The "GPLv2 only" wording is really just a clarification. You don't need it > > for the project to be "GPLv2 only". > > > > If a project says: "This code is licensed under this copyright license" > > and then goes on to quote the GPLv2, then IT IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE > > GPLv3! > > > > Or if you just say "I license my code under the GPLv2", IT IS NOT > > COMPATIBLE WITH THE GPLv3. > > And this is an area where I slightly disagree with you. While I would > hope that you were right, I can easily imagine a judge ruling that "v2 > or later" in the preamble means that the project just signed a blank > license of the FSF's discretion. The preamble does not say "v2 or later", that's only in "How To" section which is not part of the terms and conditions. But section 9 is even worse than "v2 or later". Linus' second exmaple is fine, it mentions v2 and therefore it actually is v2 only. But the first one means _any_ GPL version, even older versions, as it does not mention any version and section 9 says "If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation." ouch! Björn ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 15:04 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 15:20 ` Jörn Engel @ 2006-09-28 15:24 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 0:26 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-29 1:34 ` jdow 2006-09-29 6:08 ` Jan Engelhardt 3 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 15:24 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jörn Engel Cc: Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > It should also be pointed out that even a "GPLv2 or later" project can be > forked two different ways: you can turn it into a "GPLv3" (with perhaps a > "or later" added too) project, but you can _equally_ turn it into a "GPLv2 > only" project. Btw, it should be stated here: I'm not advocating either of the above. If a license says "v2 or later", anybody who removes an explicit right granted by the people who originally wrote and worked on the code is just being a total a-hole. Quite frankly, if the FSF ever relicenses any of their projects to be "GPLv3 or later", I will hope that everybody immediately forks, and creates a GPLv2-only copy (and yes, you have to do it immediately, or you're screwed forever). That way the people involved can all vote with their feet. I think the same is true of code that is licensed "GPL or BSD dual licensed". If I notice a patch that removes the BSD dual-license for a file, I won't apply it to the kernel I maintain unless there is some really pressing reason that I can't even think of off-hand (of course, that doesn't mean it can't have happened - if it came through a sub-maintainer I would likely never even have noticed). Or, indeed, as in the case of the reiserfs code: it's dual-licensed "GPLv2 or any other license as per Hans Reiser". Btw, I have always found it funny how some people have no problem at all with "GPLv2 or later", but then complain about reiserfs: it is _exactly_ the same dual-license, it's just that a different legal entity controls the other yet-to-be-determined license. The only _real_ difference is that in the case of reiserfs, the "other entity" is actually the original author of the code, so I _personally_ actually very strongly feel that the reiserfs case is _better_ than "GPLv2 or later". In the reiserfs case, the person who does the relicensing is actually the same people who wrote the original code and maintained it. That's how it should be (of course, I think Reiser isn't actually actively maintaining reiserfs any more, so at some point his "moral rights" do end up weakening, but in the absense of any big rewrites, I don't think that has happened yet in this example - I just wanted to point out that things aren't "black-and-white" and "original author" only gets you so far if you then leave the project). I know certain people don't like the reiserfs license - they've complained to me. At the same time, I know some of those same people themselves expressly use "GPLv2 or later". I think those people have a serious disconnect in their logic. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 15:24 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 0:26 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-29 6:22 ` Linus Torvalds 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Neil Brown @ 2006-09-29 0:26 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Jörn Engel, Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Thursday September 28, torvalds@osdl.org wrote: > > > On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > > It should also be pointed out that even a "GPLv2 or later" project can be > > forked two different ways: you can turn it into a "GPLv3" (with perhaps a > > "or later" added too) project, but you can _equally_ turn it into a "GPLv2 > > only" project. > > Btw, it should be stated here: I'm not advocating either of the above. If > a license says "v2 or later", anybody who removes an explicit right > granted by the people who originally wrote and worked on the code is just > being a total a-hole. But isn't that the whole point - to replace v2 by v3? As v3 is almost uniformly more restrictive than v2, anyone having the option of choosing v2 or v3 would naturally choose v2. If there is to be no removal of the v2 license from "v2 or later" code, then there is absolutely no point in the new license being a new version of the GPL. Rather it is a totally new license. Now I know that is what you would prefer, but it seems obvious that it isn't what the new FSF wants. I would be very surprised if new versions of any FSF-control code is available under v2 more than a few months after v3 becomes final. > > Quite frankly, if the FSF ever relicenses any of their projects to be > "GPLv3 or later", I will hope that everybody immediately forks, and > creates a GPLv2-only copy (and yes, you have to do it immediately, or > you're screwed forever). That way the people involved can all vote with > their feet. I don't see the urgency. Why are you "screwed forever"? You can always take the last version that was available under a suitable license and fork from there, just like OpenSSH did. Sure: the longer you leave it the harder it will be to get critical mass, but I don't see the need for it to be done immediately. NeilBrown ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 0:26 ` Neil Brown @ 2006-09-29 6:22 ` Linus Torvalds 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 6:22 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Neil Brown Cc: Jörn Engel, Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Neil Brown wrote: > On Thursday September 28, torvalds@osdl.org wrote: > > > > Btw, it should be stated here: I'm not advocating either of the above. If > > a license says "v2 or later", anybody who removes an explicit right > > granted by the people who originally wrote and worked on the code is just > > being a total a-hole. > > But isn't that the whole point - to replace v2 by v3? I'm sure it's the point for the FSF. Is it really the point for anybody else? Everybody else is better off with the more permissive license.. > Now I know that is what you would prefer, but it seems obvious that it > isn't what the new FSF wants. > I would be very surprised if new versions of any FSF-control code is > available under v2 more than a few months after v3 becomes final. I suspect the FSF might well be _very_ careful here. If they move to "v3 or later", they had better be damn sure somebody won't license-fork that project, or they'll be left with nothing at all. So I would not be entirely surprised if projects remain "v2 or later" just because it's to nobodys advantage to play chicken. But who knows.. > I don't see the urgency. Why are you "screwed forever"? You can > always take the last version that was available under a suitable > license and fork from there, just like OpenSSH did. > > Sure: the longer you leave it the harder it will be to get critical > mass, but I don't see the need for it to be done immediately. It obviously doesn't have to be, but it gets a lot harder to do later, if the project has any appreciable amount of real development. Of course, a lot of projects probably don't have that much. I haven't followed, but I don't get the feeling that bash or fileutils have a huge amount of constant changes.. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 15:04 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 15:20 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 15:24 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 1:34 ` jdow 2006-09-29 6:08 ` Jan Engelhardt 3 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: jdow @ 2006-09-29 1:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel From: "Linus Torvalds" <torvalds@osdl.org> > Exactly. The GPLv3 can _only_ take over a GPLv2 project if the "or later" > exists. > > It should also be pointed out that even a "GPLv2 or later" project can be > forked two different ways: you can turn it into a "GPLv3" (with perhaps a > "or later" added too) project, but you can _equally_ turn it into a "GPLv2 > only" project. > > In other words, even if the license says "GPLv2 or later", the GPLv3 isn't > actually "stronger". The original author dual-licensed it, and expressly > told you that he's ok with any GPL version greater than or equal to 2. And if it is dual licensed and the user gets to pick the license what does it mean to have GPLv3 as part of an OR clause? Those who would use or reuse the code can ignore the GPLv3 part and go forward as GPLv2. The intent of "GPLv2 or later" might have been "latest GPL version". But that is not what the words rather explicitly declare. {^_-} Joanne ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 15:04 ` Linus Torvalds ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-29 1:34 ` jdow @ 2006-09-29 6:08 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-29 7:07 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz 3 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-29 6:08 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Jörn Engel, Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, James Bottomley, linux-kernel > >And the GPLv2 and GPLv3 really _are_ mutually incompatible. There is >absolutely nothing in the GPLv2 that is inherently compatible with the >GPLv3, and the _only_ way you can mix code is if you explicitly >dual-license it. > >Ie, GPLv2 and GPLv3 are compatible only the same way GPLv2 is compatible >with a commercial proprietary license: they are compatible only if you >release the code under a dual license. > >The whole "or later" phrase is legally _no_ different at all from a dual >licensing (it's just more open-ended, and you don't know what the "or >later" will be, so you're basically saying that you trust the FSF >implicitly). So what would happen if I add an essential GPL2-only file to a "GPL2 or later" project? Let's recall, a proprietary program that combines/derives with GPL code makes the final binary GPL (and hence the source, etc. and whatnot, don't stretch it). Question: The Linux kernel does have GPL2 and GPL2+later combined, what does this make the final binary? (Maybe you implicitly answered it by this already, please indicate): >Exactly. The GPLv3 can _only_ take over a GPLv2 project if the "or later" >exists. >From that I'd say it remains GPL2 only. Thanks for the clarification (though I know we're all IANALs.) Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 6:08 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-29 7:07 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 7:07 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt Cc: Jörn Engel, Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > > So what would happen if I add an essential GPL2-only file to a "GPL2 > or later" project? Let's recall, a proprietary program that > combines/derives with GPL code makes the final binary GPL (and hence > the source, etc. and whatnot, don't stretch it). Question: The Linux > kernel does have GPL2 and GPL2+later combined, what does this make > the final binary? The final is always the most restricted license (or put another way: it's the "biggest possible license that can be used for everything", but in practice it means that non-restrictive licenses always lose out to their more restrictive brethren). This is, btw, why BSD code combined with GPL code is always GPL, and never the other way. It's not a "vote" depending on which one has more code. And it's not a mixture. The GPLv2 is very much designed to always be the most restricted license in any combination - because the license says that you cannot add any restrictions (so if there _was_ a more restricted license, it would no longer be compatible with the GPLv2, and you couldn't mix them at all in the first place). So any time you have a valid combination of licenses, if anything is "GPLv2 only", the final end result is inevitably "GPLv2 only". [ Btw, the same is true of the GPLv3 - very much by design in both cases. This is why you can _never_ combine a "GPLv2" work with a "GPLv3" work. They simply aren't compatible. One or both must accept the others license restrictions, and since neither does, and the restrictions aren't identical, there is no way to turn one into the other, or turn them both into a wholly new "mixed" license. So this is why the _only_ way you can mix GPLv2 and GPLv3 code is if the code was dual-licensed, ie we have the "v2 or later" kind of situation. ] Basic rule: licenses are compatible only if they are strict subsets of each other, and you can only ever take rights _away_ when you relicense something. You can never add rights - if you didn't get those rights in the first place with the original license, they're simply not yours to add. Otherwise, we could all buy the latest CD albums, and then relicense them with more rights than you got (or we could take GPLv3 code and remove the restrictions, and relicense it as BSD). So the reason you can't re-license the CD albums is that you don't even have any license to re-distribute them at all, and as such there is nothing for you to sublicense further. And the reason you cannot relicense the GPLv2 is that it tells you that you can't add any new restrictions when you re-distribute anything, and you obviously can't add any rights that you didn't have. And, as usual: IANAL. But none of this is really even remotely controversial. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 6:08 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-29 7:07 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: David Schwartz @ 2006-09-29 7:18 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org > So what would happen if I add an essential GPL2-only file to a "GPL2 > or later" project? The files would have to act as a license boundary. Otherwise, it would be GPL2 only. (However, I think people could reasonably assume that if someone contributed to a GPL2 or later project, they intended their work to be licensed the same as the project.) > Let's recall, a proprietary program that > combines/derives with GPL code makes the final binary GPL (and hence > the source, etc. and whatnot, don't stretch it). Question: The Linux > kernel does have GPL2 and GPL2+later combined, what does this make > the final binary? GPL2. If you combine dual licensed code with GPLv2 code, the result must be GPLv2. > (Maybe you implicitly answered it by this already, please indicate): > >Exactly. The GPLv3 can _only_ take over a GPLv2 project if the > "or later" > >exists. > From that I'd say it remains GPL2 only. I still don't see how it can take over, unless the FSF fixes the "bug" in GPLv3. GPLv2 does not permit such takeover, and unless GPLv3 is amended to do so, such a takeover is prohibited. I could be in error, I haven't looked closely enough. But if I'm right, I presume the FSF will be tipped off by someone and fix it. If anyone from the FSF is listening, you need to add a clause to GPLv3 permitting you to modify any project licensed under both the GPLv3 and another license such non-GPL and/or earlier-GPL licenses can be removed. Otherwise, no 'GPLv2 or later' project can become 'GPLv3 or later'. (Unless that's intentional.) DS ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 14:40 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 14:59 ` DervishD 2006-09-28 15:04 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-29 2:29 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-29 2:45 ` Neil Brown [not found] ` <20060928225008.ded4fa2c.seanlkml@sympatico.ca> 2 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: David Schwartz @ 2006-09-29 2:29 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org > In my very uninformed opinion, your problem is a very minor one. Your > "v2 or later" code won't get the license v2 removed, it will become > dual "v2 or v3" licensed. And assuming that v3 only adds restrictions > and doesn't allow the licensee any additional rights, you, as the > author, shouldn't have to worry much. > > The problem arises later. As with BSD/GPL dual licensed code, where > anyone can take the code and relicense it as either BSD or GPL, "v2 or > v3" code can get relicensed as v3 only. At this point, nothing is > lost, as the identical "v2 or v3" code still exists. But with further > development on the "v3 only" branch, you have a fork. And one that > doesn't just require technical means to get merged back, but has legal > restrictions. Unless I'm missing something, you *cannot* change the license from "v2 or later at your option" to "v3 or later". Both GPLv2 and GPLv3 explicitly prohibit modifying license notices. (Did the FSF goof big time? It's not too late to change the draft.) DS ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 2:29 ` David Schwartz @ 2006-09-29 2:45 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-29 3:05 ` Björn Steinbrink 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz [not found] ` <20060928225008.ded4fa2c.seanlkml@sympatico.ca> 1 sibling, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Neil Brown @ 2006-09-29 2:45 UTC (permalink / raw) To: davids; +Cc: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On Thursday September 28, davids@webmaster.com wrote: > > > In my very uninformed opinion, your problem is a very minor one. Your > > "v2 or later" code won't get the license v2 removed, it will become > > dual "v2 or v3" licensed. And assuming that v3 only adds restrictions > > and doesn't allow the licensee any additional rights, you, as the > > author, shouldn't have to worry much. > > > > The problem arises later. As with BSD/GPL dual licensed code, where > > anyone can take the code and relicense it as either BSD or GPL, "v2 or > > v3" code can get relicensed as v3 only. At this point, nothing is > > lost, as the identical "v2 or v3" code still exists. But with further > > development on the "v3 only" branch, you have a fork. And one that > > doesn't just require technical means to get merged back, but has legal > > restrictions. > > Unless I'm missing something, you *cannot* change the license from "v2 or > later at your option" to "v3 or later". Both GPLv2 and GPLv3 explicitly > prohibit modifying license notices. (Did the FSF goof big time? It's not too > late to change the draft.) Could you point to the test in either license that prohibits modifying license notices? I certainly couldn't find it in section 2 of GPLv2, which seems to be the relevant section. Interestingly, 2.b seem to say that if I received a program under GPLv2, and I pass it on, then I must pass it on under GPLv2-only... So to be able to distribute something written today under GPLv3 (when it comes into existence), you must be the original or have received it directly from the original author.... NeilBrown ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 2:45 ` Neil Brown @ 2006-09-29 3:05 ` Björn Steinbrink 2006-09-29 3:31 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Björn Steinbrink @ 2006-09-29 3:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Neil Brown; +Cc: davids, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On 2006.09.29 12:45:40 +1000, Neil Brown wrote: > On Thursday September 28, davids@webmaster.com wrote: > > > > > In my very uninformed opinion, your problem is a very minor one. Your > > > "v2 or later" code won't get the license v2 removed, it will become > > > dual "v2 or v3" licensed. And assuming that v3 only adds restrictions > > > and doesn't allow the licensee any additional rights, you, as the > > > author, shouldn't have to worry much. > > > > > > The problem arises later. As with BSD/GPL dual licensed code, where > > > anyone can take the code and relicense it as either BSD or GPL, "v2 or > > > v3" code can get relicensed as v3 only. At this point, nothing is > > > lost, as the identical "v2 or v3" code still exists. But with further > > > development on the "v3 only" branch, you have a fork. And one that > > > doesn't just require technical means to get merged back, but has legal > > > restrictions. > > > > Unless I'm missing something, you *cannot* change the license from "v2 or > > later at your option" to "v3 or later". Both GPLv2 and GPLv3 explicitly > > prohibit modifying license notices. (Did the FSF goof big time? It's not too > > late to change the draft.) > > Could you point to the test in either license that prohibits modifying > license notices? > I certainly couldn't find it in section 2 of GPLv2, which seems to be > the relevant section. It's in section 1, where it says "keep intact all the notices that refer to this License" (section 2 refers to section 1). The current GPLv3 draft says (section 4): "keep intact all license notices". Notice a difference? I'm not a native speaker and of course IANAL, but AFAICT, with "v2 or later", if you follow the terms of GPLv2, you are only required to keep notices refering to THAT license, ie. GPLv2, so you seem to be allowed to remove the GPLv3 notices. But if you follow the terms of the GPLv3, you are required to keep ALL license notices, including those that refer to v2. So you could actually never ever make a "v2 or later" program a "v3 only" program, but only a "v2 only". Am I missing something? > Interestingly, 2.b seem to say that if I received a program under > GPLv2, and I pass it on, then I must pass it on under GPLv2-only... > So to be able to distribute something written today under GPLv3 (when > it comes into existence), you must be the original or have received it > directly from the original author.... Section 9 states that the notices that refer to the license are important. If you specify "v2-only" you can use v2 only. If you specify "v2 or later" you are not bound to GPLv2 2.b at all if you choose to follow the terms of any later version. And if no version is mentioned at all, you can follow the terms of any version ever released. Björn ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 3:05 ` Björn Steinbrink @ 2006-09-29 3:31 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-29 5:37 ` Björn Steinbrink 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: David Schwartz @ 2006-09-29 3:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: B.Steinbrink, Neil Brown; +Cc: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org > It's in section 1, where it says "keep intact all the notices that refer > to this License" (section 2 refers to section 1). > The current GPLv3 draft says (section 4): "keep intact all license > notices". > > Notice a difference? I'm not a native speaker and of course IANAL, but > AFAICT, with "v2 or later", if you follow the terms of GPLv2, you are > only required to keep notices refering to THAT license, ie. GPLv2, so > you seem to be allowed to remove the GPLv3 notices. But if you follow > the terms of the GPLv3, you are required to keep ALL license notices, > including those that refer to v2. > So you could actually never ever make a "v2 or later" program a > "v3 only" program, but only a "v2 only". > > Am I missing something? That section uses the phrase "this license" twice. I think it's only reasonable to assume it means the same thing in both places. It says you must "give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program". If "this license" means GPLv2, then the GPLv2 does not allow you to remove the GPLv2 notice. I think it's somewhat absurd to say that you must include a copy of the license but may take away their right to use the code under that license. If "this license" means "whatever license you happen to have to this program", then you cannot remove or modify *any* license notices, including the "GPLv2 or later at your option" notice. I see no plausible way to argue that GPLv2 permits you to change "GPLv2 or later at your option" to "GPLv3 or later at your option". If GPLv3 does not either, then you may not do so. DS ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 3:31 ` David Schwartz @ 2006-09-29 5:37 ` Björn Steinbrink 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Björn Steinbrink @ 2006-09-29 5:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: David Schwartz; +Cc: Neil Brown, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On 2006.09.28 20:31:07 -0700, David Schwartz wrote: > > > It's in section 1, where it says "keep intact all the notices that refer > > to this License" (section 2 refers to section 1). > > The current GPLv3 draft says (section 4): "keep intact all license > > notices". > > > > Notice a difference? I'm not a native speaker and of course IANAL, but > > AFAICT, with "v2 or later", if you follow the terms of GPLv2, you are > > only required to keep notices refering to THAT license, ie. GPLv2, so > > you seem to be allowed to remove the GPLv3 notices. But if you follow > > the terms of the GPLv3, you are required to keep ALL license notices, > > including those that refer to v2. > > So you could actually never ever make a "v2 or later" program a > > "v3 only" program, but only a "v2 only". > > > > Am I missing something? > > That section uses the phrase "this license" twice. I think it's only > reasonable to assume it means the same thing in both places. It says you > must "give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along > with the Program". > > If "this license" means GPLv2, then the GPLv2 does not allow you to remove > the GPLv2 notice. I think it's somewhat absurd to say that you must include > a copy of the license but may take away their right to use the code under > that license. > > If "this license" means "whatever license you happen to have to this > program", then you cannot remove or modify *any* license notices, including > the "GPLv2 or later at your option" notice. > > I see no plausible way to argue that GPLv2 permits you to change "GPLv2 or > later at your option" to "GPLv3 or later at your option". If GPLv3 does not > either, then you may not do so. That's what I'm saying (ok, I didn't mention the "GPLv3 or later" wording). Once v3 is out, you can choose between v2 and v3. v2 seems to only forces you to keep the notice that v2 is valid. The current v3 draft forces you to keep all license notices. So if at all, you can only remove anything _but_ v2, but never v2. But I've just re-read section 9 and "this License" obviously just refers to just the GPL there, as the version number of "this License" is mentioned. So removing the "or later" won't work either and you simply cannot change which versions apply at all (at least not without all copyright holders agreeing on that change). Björn ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 2:45 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-29 3:05 ` Björn Steinbrink @ 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: David Schwartz @ 2006-09-29 7:18 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org > Interestingly, 2.b seem to say that if I received a program under > GPLv2, and I pass it on, then I must pass it on under GPLv2-only... > So to be able to distribute something written today under GPLv3 (when > it comes into existence), you must be the original or have received it > directly from the original author.... The GPL *cannot* say that. The GPL can only fail to give you rights, it cannot take rights you would otherwise have away. DS ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <20060928225008.ded4fa2c.seanlkml@sympatico.ca>]
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement [not found] ` <20060928225008.ded4fa2c.seanlkml@sympatico.ca> @ 2006-09-29 2:50 ` Sean 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz 2006-10-02 8:55 ` Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? Marc Perkel 0 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Sean @ 2006-09-29 2:50 UTC (permalink / raw) To: davids; +Cc: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 19:29:55 -0700 "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com> wrote: > Unless I'm missing something, you *cannot* change the license from "v2 or > later at your option" to "v3 or later". Both GPLv2 and GPLv3 explicitly > prohibit modifying license notices. (Did the FSF goof big time? It's not too > late to change the draft.) The copyright holder is not constrained at all in how they license their work. They can change the license to anything they want, including the GPLv3 or anything else. Of course, earlier versions will still be available under the GPLv2. Sean ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-29 2:50 ` Sean @ 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz 2006-10-02 8:55 ` Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? Marc Perkel 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: David Schwartz @ 2006-09-29 7:18 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org > On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 19:29:55 -0700 > "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com> wrote: > > Unless I'm missing something, you *cannot* change the license > > from "v2 or > > later at your option" to "v3 or later". Both GPLv2 and GPLv3 explicitly > > prohibit modifying license notices. (Did the FSF goof big time? > > It's not too > > late to change the draft.) > The copyright holder is not constrained at all in how they license their > work. They can change the license to anything they want, including the > GPLv3 or anything else. Of course, earlier versions will still > be available > under the GPLv2. Right, but *you* cannot change the license. You cannot get a copy of a "GPLv2 or later" work and add some code and release the result as "GPLv3 or later". (Assuming you are not the copyright holder.) I believe the FSF intended to permit this. Otherwise, even if Linux had been "GPLv2 or later" all along, it could not adopt GPLv3 without permission from all copyright holders (or ever include any code that was "GPLv3 or later"). That hardly seems to have been the FSF's intent. (Or was it?!) DS ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? 2006-09-29 2:50 ` Sean 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz @ 2006-10-02 8:55 ` Marc Perkel 2006-10-02 9:14 ` Jesper Juhl ` (4 more replies) 1 sibling, 5 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Marc Perkel @ 2006-10-02 8:55 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org Just a thought. Suppose we forked the GPL2 license and created the Linux license? (Or some better name) It's kind of clear the Stallman has his own ajenda and that it's not compatible with the Linux model. So - lets fork it an start a new one. The idea of the new license is as follows. It would be backwards compatible with GPL2. It's would eliminate the "or later" clause because we have already seen the potential for abuse there. How can one agree to future licenses without knowing what they are going to be? The other feature is that the license is only modified to provide legal clarification or to deal with future issues that occur as a result of new technology or circumstances that we don't know about yet. If the licenses is modified then copyright holders would then have to explicitly declare that they accept the modifications by switching to the new terms. Anyhow - I'm thinking that Richard Stallman might be more of a liability to the GPL movement and that if something can't be worked out with GPLx then maybe it's time to just fork the license and come up with a new system that is crazy leader proof. Just suggesting this as an alternative if the FSF folks insist on a political ajenda. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? 2006-10-02 8:55 ` Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? Marc Perkel @ 2006-10-02 9:14 ` Jesper Juhl 2006-10-02 9:23 ` Marc Perkel 2006-10-03 10:31 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-10-02 9:18 ` Dumitru Ciobarcianu ` (3 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jesper Juhl @ 2006-10-02 9:14 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Marc Perkel; +Cc: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On 02/10/06, Marc Perkel <marc@perkel.com> wrote: > Just a thought. Suppose we forked the GPL2 license and created the Linux > license? (Or some better name) It's kind of clear the Stallman has his > own ajenda and that it's not compatible with the Linux model. So - lets > fork it an start a new one. > Why? We can just stay with the GPLv2 forever. > The idea of the new license is as follows. It would be backwards > compatible with GPL2. It's would eliminate the "or later" clause because > we have already seen the potential for abuse there. The "or later" clause is not part of the actual license. It's part of the preamble. > How can one agree to > future licenses without knowing what they are going to be? The other > feature is that the license is only modified to provide legal > clarification or to deal with future issues that occur as a result of > new technology or circumstances that we don't know about yet. If the > licenses is modified then copyright holders would then have to > explicitly declare that they accept the modifications by switching to > the new terms. > As things are now we'd already need acceptance from all major copyright holders to switch license away from GPLv2... > Anyhow - I'm thinking that Richard Stallman might be more of a liability > to the GPL movement and that if something can't be worked out with GPLx > then maybe it's time to just fork the license and come up with a new > system that is crazy leader proof. > > Just suggesting this as an alternative if the FSF folks insist on a > political ajenda. > I don't see the point. RMS can create GPLv3 any way he wants, the Linux kernel will still be under GPLv2 terms... GPLv3 really doesn't change anything for the kernel. It would only change something if we switched the kernel to GPLv3, but doing that would probably be next to impossible anyway since all copyright holders would need to agree on the switch and; a) some copyright holders have already publicly stated that they will not agree to GPLv3 terms, and b) some of the copyright holders are dead. -- Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com> Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? 2006-10-02 9:14 ` Jesper Juhl @ 2006-10-02 9:23 ` Marc Perkel 2006-10-03 10:31 ` Jan Engelhardt 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Marc Perkel @ 2006-10-02 9:23 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jesper Juhl; +Cc: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org My thoughts on this was to make the new license backwards compatible with GPL2 so that there wouldn't be a change. The main feature of a new name is to lose RMS control. From what I can see the FSF is an cult that worships RMS who has become a little full of himself and has abandoned logic and scientific process. He has no concept of IP at all and wants to put GNU in front of everything as if he had personally invented all software. He's more like a cat spraying everything to mark it with his scent than someone who is contributing in a meaningful way. It's late - and I'm on a rant. I suppose it's a metaphor for a divorce from RMS. Just getting tired of his bullshit. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? 2006-10-02 9:14 ` Jesper Juhl 2006-10-02 9:23 ` Marc Perkel @ 2006-10-03 10:31 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-10-03 15:34 ` Marc Perkel 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-10-03 10:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jesper Juhl; +Cc: Marc Perkel, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org >> The idea of the new license is as follows. It would be backwards >> compatible with GPL2. It's would eliminate the "or later" clause because >> we have already seen the potential for abuse there. > > The "or later" clause is not part of the actual license. It's part of > the preamble. It's mentioned in the preamble, but it is actually a part of the license tag you put in your code. </nitpick> Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? 2006-10-03 10:31 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-10-03 15:34 ` Marc Perkel 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Marc Perkel @ 2006-10-03 15:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org Jan Engelhardt wrote: > > It's mentioned in the preamble, but it is actually a part of the license > tag you put in your code. </nitpick> > > > Jan Engelhardt > Yep - and if it's in there it creates confusion. Anyhow - I just threw the idea out there because even though the GPL2 has served the community well there comes a point where if RMS has evolved into more f a hinderence than a help to the cause and if he is going to dig in and be unreasonable then the idea of forking the license becomes more thinkable. I would feel more comfortable if say Larry Lessig of Creative Commons in combination with perhaps with EFF we in charge of license development. These are more trusted organization with serious legal minds who can write a license that actually protects our interests in a way that will hold up in courts. So far the GPL2 is doing fine but it occasionally needs a little tweak to make it more accurate. One of those tweaks is that the preamble lose the "or later" clause. Maybe RMS will get the message and realize that the Linux voice must be heard and he will return to some kind of sanity on this. I don't think it's time yet to fork the GPL but I think it's time to talk about the possibility if GPL3 doesn't change. I think that GPL3 is so substantially different than GPL2 that it should not have the same name. So if GPL3 doesn't change then I vote fork. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? 2006-10-02 8:55 ` Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? Marc Perkel 2006-10-02 9:14 ` Jesper Juhl @ 2006-10-02 9:18 ` Dumitru Ciobarcianu 2006-10-02 9:25 ` Patrick McFarland ` (2 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Dumitru Ciobarcianu @ 2006-10-02 9:18 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Marc Perkel; +Cc: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On Mon, 2006-10-02 at 01:55 -0700, Marc Perkel wrote: > Just a thought. Suppose we forked the GPL2 license and created the Linux > license? (Or some better name) It's kind of clear the Stallman has his > own ajenda and that it's not compatible with the Linux model. So - lets > fork it an start a new one. > > The idea of the new license is as follows. It would be backwards > compatible with GPL2. It's would eliminate the "or later" clause because > we have already seen the potential for abuse there. Common misconception. As countless times before stated, there is no "or later" clause in the licence itself. -- Cioby ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? 2006-10-02 8:55 ` Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? Marc Perkel 2006-10-02 9:14 ` Jesper Juhl 2006-10-02 9:18 ` Dumitru Ciobarcianu @ 2006-10-02 9:25 ` Patrick McFarland 2006-10-02 18:26 ` James Dickens 2006-10-03 20:59 ` Ivan Dimitrov 2006-10-03 22:02 ` Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? Daniel Barkalow 4 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Patrick McFarland @ 2006-10-02 9:25 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Marc Perkel; +Cc: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On Monday 02 October 2006 04:55, Marc Perkel wrote: > Just a thought. Suppose we forked the GPL2 license and created the Linux > license? (Or some better name) It's kind of clear the Stallman has his > own ajenda and that it's not compatible with the Linux model. So - lets > fork it an start a new one. > > The idea of the new license is as follows. It would be backwards > compatible with GPL2. It's would eliminate the "or later" clause because > we have already seen the potential for abuse there. How can one agree to > future licenses without knowing what they are going to be? The other > feature is that the license is only modified to provide legal > clarification or to deal with future issues that occur as a result of > new technology or circumstances that we don't know about yet. If the > licenses is modified then copyright holders would then have to > explicitly declare that they accept the modifications by switching to > the new terms. I'd be behind such a license if it was 100% functionally equivalent to the GPL (ie, a reword just to get around the FSF Copyright of the GPL). I'd even license my own code under it. Linus, you want to chime in here? -- Patrick McFarland || http://AdTerrasPerAspera.com "Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." -- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? 2006-10-02 9:25 ` Patrick McFarland @ 2006-10-02 18:26 ` James Dickens 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: James Dickens @ 2006-10-02 18:26 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Patrick McFarland; +Cc: Marc Perkel, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On 10/2/06, Patrick McFarland <diablod3@gmail.com> wrote: > On Monday 02 October 2006 04:55, Marc Perkel wrote: > > Just a thought. Suppose we forked the GPL2 license and created the Linux > > license? (Or some better name) It's kind of clear the Stallman has his > > own ajenda and that it's not compatible with the Linux model. So - lets > > fork it an start a new one. > > > > The idea of the new license is as follows. It would be backwards > > compatible with GPL2. It's would eliminate the "or later" clause because > > we have already seen the potential for abuse there. How can one agree to > > future licenses without knowing what they are going to be? The other > > feature is that the license is only modified to provide legal > > clarification or to deal with future issues that occur as a result of > > new technology or circumstances that we don't know about yet. If the > > licenses is modified then copyright holders would then have to > > explicitly declare that they accept the modifications by switching to > > the new terms. > > I'd be behind such a license if it was 100% functionally equivalent to the GPL > (ie, a reword just to get around the FSF Copyright of the GPL). I'd even > license my own code under it. > it doesn't matter, how compatible it is, there is still the problem that all past code submitters would have to agree to it. Since they submitted their code to be gpl v2. James Dickens uadmin.blogspot.com > Linus, you want to chime in here? > > -- > Patrick McFarland || http://AdTerrasPerAspera.com > "Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, > we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and > listening to repetitive electronic music." -- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, > Inc, 1989 > > - > 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/ > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? 2006-10-02 8:55 ` Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? Marc Perkel ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2006-10-02 9:25 ` Patrick McFarland @ 2006-10-03 20:59 ` Ivan Dimitrov 2006-10-03 21:00 ` Chase Venters 2006-10-03 21:17 ` It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX Marc Perkel 2006-10-03 22:02 ` Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? Daniel Barkalow 4 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Ivan Dimitrov @ 2006-10-03 20:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Marc Perkel; +Cc: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org If you want to kill linux then fork it.And remember that many people use GNU/Linux because of the ideology and the idea of freedom, not because of the "Security" that DRM will provide them... This guy Linus is just an ambitious and selfish bastard... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? 2006-10-03 20:59 ` Ivan Dimitrov @ 2006-10-03 21:00 ` Chase Venters 2006-10-03 21:17 ` It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX Marc Perkel 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Chase Venters @ 2006-10-03 21:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Ivan Dimitrov; +Cc: Marc Perkel, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On Tue, 3 Oct 2006, Ivan Dimitrov wrote: > If you want to kill linux then fork it.And remember that many people use > GNU/Linux because of the ideology and the idea of freedom [snip] Ivan makes a good point here. I understand that pragmatism is king in this community but it would be a mistake to forget that there are lots of happy users out there that care about the idealism too. And it would be a mistake to offend those users just to make good on your personal vendetta against Richard Stallman. Thanks, Chase ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-03 20:59 ` Ivan Dimitrov 2006-10-03 21:00 ` Chase Venters @ 2006-10-03 21:17 ` Marc Perkel 2006-10-03 21:41 ` Neil Brown 2006-10-03 21:41 ` Adam Henley 1 sibling, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Marc Perkel @ 2006-10-03 21:17 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Ivan Dimitrov; +Cc: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org Ivan Dimitrov wrote: > If you want to kill linux then fork it.And remember that many people use > GNU/Linux because of the ideology and the idea of freedom, not because > of the "Security" that DRM will provide them... This guy Linus is just > an ambitious and selfish bastard... > Ivan - It's not GNU/Linux - it's just LINUX. Time to get the name right. RMS doesn't get to rename Linux. Linux isn't going to go away just because they fork the license. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-03 21:17 ` It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX Marc Perkel @ 2006-10-03 21:41 ` Neil Brown 2006-10-04 20:09 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-10-03 21:41 ` Adam Henley 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Neil Brown @ 2006-10-03 21:41 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Marc Perkel; +Cc: Ivan Dimitrov, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On Tuesday October 3, marc@perkel.com wrote: > Ivan Dimitrov wrote: > > If you want to kill linux then fork it.And remember that many people use > > GNU/Linux because of the ideology and the idea of freedom, not because > > of the "Security" that DRM will provide them... This guy Linus is just > > an ambitious and selfish bastard... > > > > Ivan - It's not GNU/Linux - it's just LINUX. Time to get the name right. > RMS doesn't get to rename Linux. Linux isn't going to go away just > because they fork the license. "Linux" is an operating system kernel. By itself it is pretty useless. A thing which is Linux plus lots of libraries and utilities and maybe a windowing system and a "desktop" is a lot more than "Linux". It might be Redhat Linux, it might be SuSE Linux. It might be GNU/Linux. It might be Debian GNU/Linux. It might be KLX (referring to KDE, Linux and The X11 Windowing System I think). It might be Ubuntu. But isn't just "Linux". It was never my understanding that RMS tried to rename the Linux Kernel as GNU/Linux. Rather he wanted to name the complete system comprising Linux and some GNU software and X and anything else that was free as "GNU/Linux". I suspect he has more right than many to suggest a name for the system seeing how much philosophy and technology he has contributed. NeilBrown ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-03 21:41 ` Neil Brown @ 2006-10-04 20:09 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-10-04 20:53 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-10-04 20:09 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Neil Brown; +Cc: Marc Perkel, Ivan Dimitrov, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org >"Linux" is an operating system kernel. By itself it is pretty >useless. I have to object. Linux (kernel) plus a static standalone userspace binary -- 'enough' for embedded applications. It does not need GNU in it (with the exception of the kernel's license, GPL, of course). >A thing which is Linux plus lots of libraries and utilities and maybe >a windowing system and a "desktop" is a lot more than "Linux". -`J' -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-04 20:09 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-10-04 20:53 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: linux-os (Dick Johnson) @ 2006-10-04 20:53 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt Cc: Neil Brown, Marc Perkel, Ivan Dimitrov, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1578 bytes --] On Wed, 4 Oct 2006, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > >> "Linux" is an operating system kernel. By itself it is pretty >> useless. > > I have to object. > > Linux (kernel) plus a static standalone userspace binary -- 'enough' for > embedded applications. It does not need GNU in it (with the exception > of the kernel's license, GPL, of course). > Actually, it needs no libraries at all. See attached. It doesn't even need the 'C' language to perform useful work although I'm sure you would not want to write a database application in assembly language. Also, although I used the GNU assembler and Linker, there are other tools that would work just as well. >> A thing which is Linux plus lots of libraries and utilities and maybe >> a windowing system and a "desktop" is a lot more than "Linux". > > -`J' > -- Cheers, Dick Johnson Penguin : Linux version 2.6.16.24 on an i686 machine (5592.72 BogoMips). New book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/ _ \x1a\x04 **************************************************************** The information transmitted in this message is confidential and may be privileged. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or other use of this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify Analogic Corporation immediately - by replying to this message or by sending an email to DeliveryErrors@analogic.com - and destroy all copies of this information, including any attachments, without reading or disclosing them. Thank you. [-- Attachment #2: alone.tar.gz --] [-- Type: APPLICATION/x-gzip, Size: 1257 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-03 21:17 ` It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX Marc Perkel 2006-10-03 21:41 ` Neil Brown @ 2006-10-03 21:41 ` Adam Henley 2006-10-03 21:47 ` Marc Perkel 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Adam Henley @ 2006-10-03 21:41 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Marc Perkel; +Cc: Ivan Dimitrov, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On 03/10/06, Marc Perkel <marc@perkel.com> wrote: < ... > > Ivan - It's not GNU/Linux - it's just LINUX. Time to get the name right. > RMS doesn't get to rename Linux. Linux isn't going to go away just > because they fork the license. > o_O Well this *is* the Linux kernel mailing list...so yes, the kernel is called Linux. RMS wants to take credit for the parts of your complete operating system breakfast (including GCC et al.) that were developed by the GNU project. Whether this is wholly unreasonable or not is an exercise for the reader. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-03 21:41 ` Adam Henley @ 2006-10-03 21:47 ` Marc Perkel 2006-10-03 21:58 ` Chase Venters ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Marc Perkel @ 2006-10-03 21:47 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Adam Henley; +Cc: Ivan Dimitrov, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org Adam Henley wrote: > On 03/10/06, Marc Perkel <marc@perkel.com> wrote: > < ... > >> Ivan - It's not GNU/Linux - it's just LINUX. Time to get the name right. >> RMS doesn't get to rename Linux. Linux isn't going to go away just >> because they fork the license. >> > > o_O > > Well this *is* the Linux kernel mailing list...so yes, the kernel is > called Linux. > > RMS wants to take credit for the parts of your complete operating > system breakfast (including GCC et al.) that were developed by the GNU > project. Whether this is wholly unreasonable or not is an exercise for > the reader. Most of the GNU utilities were just clones of the work the AT&T did when the C language and the Unix operating system was invented. To clone an existing product is trivial as compared to coming up with the original ideas in the first place. RMS didn't invent C, he cloned it. If anything it should be called AT&T/Linux if you want to give credit to the innovators. RMS is just a middleman in the process. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-03 21:47 ` Marc Perkel @ 2006-10-03 21:58 ` Chase Venters 2006-10-03 22:00 ` Hua Zhong 2006-10-03 22:10 ` M4y3c0 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Chase Venters @ 2006-10-03 21:58 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Marc Perkel; +Cc: Adam Henley, Ivan Dimitrov, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On Tue, 3 Oct 2006, Marc Perkel wrote: > > > Adam Henley wrote: >> On 03/10/06, Marc Perkel <marc@perkel.com> wrote: >> < ... > >> > Ivan - It's not GNU/Linux - it's just LINUX. Time to get the name right. >> > RMS doesn't get to rename Linux. Linux isn't going to go away just >> > because they fork the license. >> > >> >> o_O >> >> Well this *is* the Linux kernel mailing list...so yes, the kernel is >> called Linux. >> >> RMS wants to take credit for the parts of your complete operating >> system breakfast (including GCC et al.) that were developed by the GNU >> project. Whether this is wholly unreasonable or not is an exercise for >> the reader. > > Most of the GNU utilities were just clones of the work the AT&T did when the > C language and the Unix operating system was invented. To clone an existing > product is trivial as compared to coming up with the original ideas in the > first place. RMS didn't invent C, he cloned it. If anything it should be > called AT&T/Linux if you want to give credit to the innovators. RMS is just a > middleman in the process. > Linus didn't invent the UNIX syscall interface either, but I think he deserves a hell of a lot of credit for doing a good job making an implementation of it. I fail to see how this conversation thread could possibly be considered even remotely productive. Can I kindly ask you to stop attacking RMS and the FSF on LKML? Thanks, Chase ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-03 21:47 ` Marc Perkel 2006-10-03 21:58 ` Chase Venters @ 2006-10-03 22:00 ` Hua Zhong 2006-10-04 1:17 ` Patrick Draper 2006-10-03 22:10 ` M4y3c0 2 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Hua Zhong @ 2006-10-03 22:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 'Marc Perkel', 'Adam Henley' Cc: 'Ivan Dimitrov', 'Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org' > Most of the GNU utilities were just clones of the work the > AT&T did when the C language and the Unix operating system > was invented. To clone an existing product is trivial as > compared to coming up with the original ideas in the first > place. RMS didn't invent C, he cloned it. If anything it > should be called AT&T/Linux if you want to give credit to the > innovators. RMS is just a middleman in the process. Since we've got to this point, let's call it AT&T/Unix. Hua ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-03 22:00 ` Hua Zhong @ 2006-10-04 1:17 ` Patrick Draper 2006-10-04 2:06 ` Patrick McFarland 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Patrick Draper @ 2006-10-04 1:17 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel On 10/3/06, Hua Zhong <hzhong@gmail.com> wrote: > Since we've got to this point, let's call it AT&T/Unix. Neither would exist without Alexander Graham Bell, and even had a mother. Let's call it Alexander Graham Bell's Mom. -- Patrick Draper --- pdraper@gmail.com Austin, Texas --- http://www.pdrap.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-04 1:17 ` Patrick Draper @ 2006-10-04 2:06 ` Patrick McFarland 2006-10-04 15:16 ` Patrick Draper 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Patrick McFarland @ 2006-10-04 2:06 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Patrick Draper; +Cc: linux-kernel On Tuesday 03 October 2006 21:17, Patrick Draper wrote: > On 10/3/06, Hua Zhong <hzhong@gmail.com> wrote: > > Since we've got to this point, let's call it AT&T/Unix. > > Neither would exist without Alexander Graham Bell, and even had a mother. > > Let's call it Alexander Graham Bell's Mom. Wow, this may be the first "yo momma" insult ever told on the LKML. -- Patrick McFarland || http://AdTerrasPerAspera.com "Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." -- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-04 2:06 ` Patrick McFarland @ 2006-10-04 15:16 ` Patrick Draper 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Patrick Draper @ 2006-10-04 15:16 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel On 10/3/06, Patrick McFarland <diablod3@gmail.com> wrote: > > Let's call it Alexander Graham Bell's Mom. > > Wow, this may be the first "yo momma" insult ever told on the LKML. Not intended as an insult, just my lame attempt at humor... -- Patrick Draper --- pdraper@gmail.com Austin, Texas --- http://www.pdrap.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX 2006-10-03 21:47 ` Marc Perkel 2006-10-03 21:58 ` Chase Venters 2006-10-03 22:00 ` Hua Zhong @ 2006-10-03 22:10 ` M4y3c0 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: M4y3c0 @ 2006-10-03 22:10 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Marc Perkel; +Cc: Adam Henley, Ivan Dimitrov, Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1446 bytes --] El Martes, 3 de Octubre de 2006 4:47 PM, Marc Perkel escribió: > Adam Henley wrote: > > On 03/10/06, Marc Perkel <marc@perkel.com> wrote: > > < ... > > > > >> Ivan - It's not GNU/Linux - it's just LINUX. Time to > >> get the name right. RMS doesn't get to rename Linux. > >> Linux isn't going to go away just because they fork > >> the license. > > > > o_O > > > > Well this *is* the Linux kernel mailing list...so yes, > > the kernel is called Linux. > > > > RMS wants to take credit for the parts of your complete > > operating system breakfast (including GCC et al.) that > > were developed by the GNU project. Whether this is > > wholly unreasonable or not is an exercise for the > > reader. > > Most of the GNU utilities were just clones of the work > the AT&T did when the C language and the Unix operating > system was invented. To clone an existing product is > trivial as compared to coming up with the original ideas > in the first place. RMS didn't invent C, he cloned it. If > anything it should be called AT&T/Linux if you want to > give credit to the innovators. RMS is just a middleman in > the process. AT&T/Minix > > - > 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/ -- M4y3c0 [-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 191 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? 2006-10-02 8:55 ` Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? Marc Perkel ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2006-10-03 20:59 ` Ivan Dimitrov @ 2006-10-03 22:02 ` Daniel Barkalow 4 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Daniel Barkalow @ 2006-10-03 22:02 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Marc Perkel; +Cc: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org On Mon, 2 Oct 2006, Marc Perkel wrote: > Just a thought. Suppose we forked the GPL2 license and created the Linux > license? (Or some better name) It's kind of clear the Stallman has his own > ajenda and that it's not compatible with the Linux model. So - lets fork it an > start a new one. The GPLv2 isn't open source, so it can't (legally) be forked: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. (The "mere aggregation" clause is, in fact, very important, since otherwise it would be impossible to distribute GPLed code along with the license for it.) Now, it would be plausible to get Creative Commons to do a "provide source" clause, such that there would be an alternative text with the same effect as the GPLv2, if there was enough negative opinion about the FSF to justify having an alternative text to use for this effect. -Daniel *This .sig left intentionally blank* ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 14:19 ` DervishD 2006-09-28 14:40 ` Jörn Engel @ 2006-09-28 14:51 ` Simon Oosthoek 2006-09-28 15:07 ` DervishD 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Simon Oosthoek @ 2006-09-28 14:51 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel DervishD wrote: > Probably the renaming is just common sense and will avoid ALL > problems. People like me are concerned only because all GPLv2 that > doesn't state otherwise will be released automagically under GPLv3 as > soon as the latest draft is made the official version. Otherwise, I > wouldn't give a hump about any new license until I have the time to > read it and see if I like it. > I've already commented on the fsf site about this in the same way, and I wasn't the first one. The only problem with this, from the FSF p.o.v. is when this draft will not be automatically applied to all those pieces of code licensed under "v2 or any later", the power of their political message will be reduced to those choosing freely to convert to the new license. I have no idea how many that would be, but those that do would actually support their political agenda, which would be much better from the "free" perspective. If they choose to "upgrade" the GPL from v2 to this draft, they will never again get support from those who feel betrayed in their trust of the FSF in keeping the GPL to its original meaning in v2 (but not from its original intended meaning, so probably it would have been misplaced trust) So who would get "hurt" by this? People who licensed their code under the GPLv2 or later, naively thinking that the license text was the intended goal of the license. Still, these are interesting times in free/open source software world ;-) /Simon ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 14:51 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Simon Oosthoek @ 2006-09-28 15:07 ` DervishD 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: DervishD @ 2006-09-28 15:07 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Simon Oosthoek Cc: Lennart Sorensen, Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Hi Simon :) * Simon Oosthoek <simon.oosthoek@ti-wmc.nl> dixit: > DervishD wrote: > > Probably the renaming is just common sense and will avoid ALL > >problems. People like me are concerned only because all GPLv2 that > >doesn't state otherwise will be released automagically under GPLv3 as > >soon as the latest draft is made the official version. Otherwise, I > >wouldn't give a hump about any new license until I have the time to > >read it and see if I like it. > > I've already commented on the fsf site about this in the same way, > and I wasn't the first one. The only problem with this, from the > FSF p.o.v. is when this draft will not be automatically applied to > all those pieces of code licensed under "v2 or any later", the > power of their political message will be reduced to those choosing > freely to convert to the new license. I have no idea how many that > would be, but those that do would actually support their political > agenda, which would be much better from the "free" perspective. Probably I'm wrong here, but if the renaming took place, much more people will probably convert to the new license if given the change of choosing. I mean, we humans tend to do exactly the opposite of what we are forced to do... OTOH, if the renaming takes place and almost nobody changes to GPLv3, that's a thing to think profoundly about. > So who would get "hurt" by this? People who licensed their code > under the GPLv2 or later, naively thinking that the license text > was the intended goal of the license. That's what I think, too. Myself, I've re-released some of my projects just in case I dislike the GPLv3 because I don't want my license to be converted by the recipients of my code (they can pick GPLv3 if they want). Probably I will convert to GPLv3, who knows, but not because I lazily copied a disclaimer that says "any later version", if I do a relicensing I'll do it on purpose. When I chose GPLv2 I thought that future versions will correct minor legalese, wording or things like that, but I never thought about the DRM thing. While I don't like "tivoization", I'm not against DRM as a technology, and the same can be applied to other chunks of the new GPLv3 license draft. > Still, these are interesting times in free/open source software > world ;-) Unfortunately ;) I think that finally people will make a good deal about all this fuss :)) And if they don't, I'm not worried at all for the future of FOSS, because if a fork must be produced, it will be. Killing FOSS is very hard ;) Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado -- Linux Registered User 88736 | http://www.dervishd.net It's my PC and I'll cry if I want to... RAmen! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 13:55 ` Lennart Sorensen 2006-09-28 14:19 ` DervishD @ 2006-09-28 15:38 ` Linus Torvalds 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 15:38 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lennart Sorensen Cc: Chase Venters, Sergey Panov, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Lennart Sorensen wrote: > > I wonder if perhaps the solution should be that the GPLv3 draft should > be renamed to something else to allow RMS to create his new license that > does exactly what he wants it to do, without hijacking existing GPLv2 > code using a license that in many people's opinion is NOT in the spirit > of the GPLv2 (which it could be argued overrides the "or later" part of > the license). I've argued that in the past, and so have others. I think the GPLv3 could well try to stand on its own, without being propped up by a lot of code which was written by people who may or may not agree with the changes. The whole "in the spirit of" thing is very much debatable - the FSF will claim that it's in _their_ spirit, but the whole point of the language is not to re-assure _them_, but others, so the argument (which I've heard over and over again) that _their_ spirit matters more is somewhat dubious. I would personally think that a much less contentious thing would have been to make a future "GPL" only happens if some court of law actually struck down something, or some actual judge made it clear that something could be problematic. In other words, it shouldn't extend on the meaning of the license, it should be used to _fix_ actual problems. Not imagined ones. Instead, so far, every single lawsuit about the GPLv2 has instead strengthened the thing. NONE of the worries that people have had (language, translation, whatever) have actually been problems. The GPLv2 is stronger today than it was 15 years ago! But there are certainly tons of non-legal reasons why the FSF doesn't want to go that way. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 4:39 ` Chase Venters ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-28 13:55 ` Lennart Sorensen @ 2006-09-28 18:34 ` Linus Torvalds 3 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 18:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Chase Venters Cc: Sergey Panov, Patrick McFarland, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Chase Venters wrote: > > After lots of careful consideration, I think it is fair to say that Stallman > vigorously and extremely promotes and stands by his ideals, but the ideals he > stands for aren't all that radical or extreme. That is the difference, isn't > it? I would disagree. What you talk about is "idealism". You can be idealistic about anything. I agree that rms is also idealistic, but that's not what makes him extremist. There are a lot of idealistic people who aren't extreme. Extremism has nothing to do with _what_ the ideal is, but with how you state them. That's not just my interpretation, I can back it up with actual meaning of the word. S: (n) extremism (any political theory favoring immoderate uncompromising policies) That's from wordnet.princeton.edu. Note the "ANY" in "any political theory". And that "immoderate" and "uncompromizing" is rms to a T. So please, if you want to argue semantics, at least look up the word first. When I said extremist, I didn't use that word in the wrong way. For example, the difference between a "deeply religious person" and an "extremist religious person" is not in their depth or trueness of their beliefs. It's in whether they want to allow other people to believe otherwise and can compromize when dealing with those other people. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 3:15 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 3:47 ` Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-28 17:16 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 2006-09-28 18:59 ` Segher Boessenkool 2006-09-29 8:04 ` Jan Engelhardt 1 sibling, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: linux-os (Dick Johnson) @ 2006-09-28 17:16 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Patrick McFarland, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Patrick McFarland wrote: >> On Wednesday 27 September 2006 20:18, Linus Torvalds wrote: >>> I think a lot of people may be confused because what they see is >>> >>> (a) Something that has been brewing for a _loong_ time. There has been >>> the FSF position, and there has been the open source position, and >>> the two have been very clearly separated. >> >> But whats wrong with that? The FSF is a "project" (or really, a group >> of projects, because some FSF projects don't agree with the FSF >> position either), it isn't them official voice of the community. > > Right, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with having two > positions. > > In many ways, I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying that we should _expect_ > people to have different opinions. Everybody has their own opinion anyway, > and expecting people not have different opinions (especially programmers, > who are a rather opinionated lot in the first place) is just not > realistic. > > There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a very wide consensus among a > very varied developer base. In fact, I think that's _great_. > > And the reason I'm speaking out against the GPLv3 is that it is trying to > "sort the chaff from the wheat". The FSF is apparently not happy with a > wide community appeal - they want _their_ standpoint to be the one that > matters. > > I have all through the "discussion" tried to explain that the great thing > about the GPLv2 is that it allows all these people with totally different > ideals to come together. It doesn't have to be "perfect" for any > particular group - it's very perfection comes not from it's language, but > the very fact that it's _acceptable_ to a very wide group. > > When the FSF tries to "narrow it down", they kill the whole point of it. > The license suddenly is not a thing to get around and enjoy, it's become a > weapon to be used to attack the enemy. > > Here in the US, the only watchable TV news program is "The Daily Show" > with Jon Stewart. One of his fairly recurring themes is about how US > politics is destroyed by all these passionate and vocal extremists, and he > asks whether there can ever be a really passionate moderate. "Can you be > passionate about the middle road?" > > Dammit, I want to be a "Passionate Moderate". I'm passionate about just > people being able to work together on the same license, without this > extremism. > > So here's my _real_ cry for freedom: > > "It's _ok_ to be commercial and do it just for money. And yes, you can > even have a FSF badge, and carry Stallmans manifesto around everywhere > you go. And yes, we accept people who like cryptography, and we accept > people who aren't our friends. You don't have to believe exactly like we > believe!" > > And for fifteen years, the GPLv2 has been a great umbrella for that. > > The FSF is throwing that away, because they don't _want_ to work with > people who don't share their ideals. > >>> At the same time, both camps have been trying to be somewhat polite, >>> as long as the fact that the split does clearly exist doesn't >>> actually _matter_. >> >> I agree. It doesn't matter because everyone is free to use whatever >> version they want of the GPL. Of course, people do also recognize that >> the GPL2 vs GPL3 argument is just a more subtle version of whats been >> going on for years with BSD vs GPL. > > That's part of what really gets my goat. I spent too much time arguing > with crazy BSD people who tried to tell me that _their_ license was "true > freedom". The FSF shills echo those old BSD cries closely - even though > they are on the exact opposite side of the spectrum on the "freedom" part. > > I hated BSD people who just couldn't shut up about their complaining about > my choice of license back then (the good old BSD/MIT vs GPL flamewars). > >>> In fact, most programmers _still_ probably >>> don't care. A lot of people use a license not because they "chose" >>> it, but because they work on a project where somebody else chose the >>> license for them originally. >> >> Programmers don't care because we aren't lawyers. I mean, few things >> are stated so simply, but lets face it, law is boring to quite a few >> geeks, and the intersection between geeks who code and geeks who law >> is very small. > > I think a _lot_ of programmers care very deeply indeed about the licenses. > I certainly do. I wouldn't want to be a lawyer, but I care about how my > code gets used. > > That said, I don't care how everybody _elses_ code gets used, which is > apparently one of the differences between me and rms. > >>> Not really. It wasn't even news. The kernel has had the "v2 only" thing >>> explicitly for more than half a decade, and I have personally tried to >>> make it very clear that even before that, it never had anything else (ie >>> it very much _had_ a specific license version, just by including the damn >>> thing, and the kernel has _never_ had the "v2 or any later" language). >> >> Wasn't that just to prevent the FSF from going evil and juping all your code? > > Well, initially it wasn't even a conscious "I don't trust the FSF" thing. > But when I chose the GPL (v2, back then) I chose _that_ license. There was > absolutely no need for me to say "or later". If the GPLv2 ever really > turns out to be a bad license, we can re-license _then_. > > Yes, it would be really really painful, but I think the "or later" wording > is worse. How can you _ever_ sign anything sight unseen? That's just > stupid, and that's totally regardless of any worries about the FSF. > > Later, when I did start having doubts about the FSF, I just made it even > more clear, since some people wondered. > >> The only problem is that, alternatively, the FOSS movement was so >> strong because of RMS's kool-aid everyone drank. The community has >> teeth, and this is in partly because of the actions of the FSF. We >> defend ourselves when we need to. >> >> Its just that, at least with the Tivo case, that the defense went a tad too >> far. > > I think the FSF has always alienated as many (or more) people as they > befriended, but maybe that's just me. I was looking for old newsgroup > threads about this earlier in the week, and noticed somebody in the BSD > camp saying that I was using the GPL, but that I wasn't as radical as rms. > And iirc, that was from 1993, when Linux was virtually unknown. > > So I think that not being too extreme is a _good_ thing. It's how you can > get more people involved. > > So everybody - join the "Passionate Moderate" movement, even if you're not > in the US. We're not passionate about any of the issues, we are just > _really_ fed up with extreme opinions! And we're not afraid to say so! > > [ The really sad part is: that was only _somewhat_ in jest. Dammit, > sometimes I think we really need that party! ] > > Linus I didn't just jump right in yesterday when this first came up because I wanted to take the time to properly compose a statement in view of the fact that just about everything on the Internet is being recorded forever. I am certainly glad that Linus has awakened to the RMS threat that I mentioned on this list several years ago. As soon as I saw "GNU/Linux" and Stallman's claim that Linux was simply a small component of a larger "Operating System" of which he claimed ownership, I became much disturbed and reported the same on this list. To many, my report was simply "the rantings of a lunatic." However, now some are beginning to see the light as history continues to be rewritten and a history lesson is unfolding. Stallman's claim to ownership pitchforks hog shit in the face of hundreds who took the time and effort to port BSD utilities to that wondrous new operating system called Linux and I was one, claiming no glory for myself, nor even bothering to add anything to the BSD licenses that existed within these utilities. This was done for the greater good of all (and of course me, because I wanted to use these utilities under Linux), not for the political aspirations of a few. These efforts go back to the days when "distributions" consisted of 56 floppy disks and Linus was in Helsinki, working on his degree. The FSF didn't exist, and GNU was the name of an immature compiler. Sometimes we need to be reminded of the history of a particular thing because, once out-of-mind, history tends to be rewritten by those who would advance in its new "interpretation." Every time I accidentally execute `uname` with an -a instead of a -r, I am reminded of the history rewrite as I am presented with: Linux chaos.analogic.com 2.6.16.24 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Jul 12 11:32:34 EDT 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux ^^^^^^^^^ If history continues to repeat itself, the FSF has just about run its course and, when contributors continue to realize that their tradition of giving for the common good, is being replaced by the politics of a small body of thrill seekers, they will revert their licenses to become more liberal rather than restrictive. The problem could remain that excessive damage may already have been done. Cheers, Dick Johnson Penguin : Linux version 2.6.16.24 on an i686 machine (5592.66 BogoMips). New book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/ _ \x1a\x04 **************************************************************** The information transmitted in this message is confidential and may be privileged. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or other use of this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify Analogic Corporation immediately - by replying to this message or by sending an email to DeliveryErrors@analogic.com - and destroy all copies of this information, including any attachments, without reading or disclosing them. Thank you. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 17:16 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) @ 2006-09-28 18:59 ` Segher Boessenkool 2006-09-28 19:34 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 2006-09-29 8:04 ` Jan Engelhardt 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Segher Boessenkool @ 2006-09-28 18:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-os (Dick Johnson) Cc: Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel > However, now some are beginning to see the light as history > continues to be rewritten and a history lesson is unfolding. > These efforts go back to the days when > "distributions" consisted of 56 floppy disks and Linus was > in Helsinki, working on his degree. The FSF didn't exist, and > GNU was the name of an immature compiler. The FSF was founded in 1985, now who is rewriting history here :-) "GNU" never was the name for the compiler, either. > Sometimes we need > to be reminded of the history of a particular thing because, > once out-of-mind, history tends to be rewritten by those who > would advance in its new "interpretation." I don't really want to know what you try to gain by this "properly composed statement", heh. Segher ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 18:59 ` Segher Boessenkool @ 2006-09-28 19:34 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 2006-09-28 20:01 ` Oleg Verych 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: linux-os (Dick Johnson) @ 2006-09-28 19:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Segher Boessenkool Cc: Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Segher Boessenkool wrote: >> However, now some are beginning to see the light as history >> continues to be rewritten and a history lesson is unfolding. > >> These efforts go back to the days when >> "distributions" consisted of 56 floppy disks and Linus was >> in Helsinki, working on his degree. The FSF didn't exist, and >> GNU was the name of an immature compiler. > > The FSF was founded in 1985, now who is rewriting history > here :-) "GNU" never was the name for the compiler, either. > No. GNU was coined in 1984-85 (depending upon the source). It was a recursive 'GNU Not Unix', and referred to some free tools, including Eimacs. One of the most important tools was a compiler which could be readily ported to new operating systems. The GNU compiler was used in an attempt to make Hurd, an early Unix clone. It was also used by BSD and Linux. >> Sometimes we need >> to be reminded of the history of a particular thing because, >> once out-of-mind, history tends to be rewritten by those who >> would advance in its new "interpretation." > > I don't really want to know what you try to gain by this > "properly composed statement", heh. > > Segher > FYI, the place to research your information is not on www.gnu.org or Wikipedia, both of which are too self-serving (in this area) to be used as a reference. You need to dig deeper or ask someone who was there. Cheers, Dick Johnson Penguin : Linux version 2.6.16.24 on an i686 machine (5592.66 BogoMips). New book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/ _ \x1a\x04 **************************************************************** The information transmitted in this message is confidential and may be privileged. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or other use of this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify Analogic Corporation immediately - by replying to this message or by sending an email to DeliveryErrors@analogic.com - and destroy all copies of this information, including any attachments, without reading or disclosing them. Thank you. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 19:34 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) @ 2006-09-28 20:01 ` Oleg Verych 2006-09-28 23:12 ` Gene Heskett 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Oleg Verych @ 2006-09-28 20:01 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Segher Boessenkool, Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Sorry, but that pulled *my* trigger... On 2006-09-28, linux-os (Dick Johnson) <linux-os@analogic.com> wrote: > Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail > From: "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com> > Newsgroups: gmane.linux.kernel > Subject: Re: GPLv3 Position Statement > Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:34:58 -0400 > Lines: 48 [...] > Original-Received: from odyssey.analogic.com ([204.178.40.5]:5135 "EHLO odyssey.analogic.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1030383AbWI1TfG convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT <rfc822;linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>); Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:35:06 -0400 > Original-Received: from chaos.analogic.com ([10.112.50.11]) by phoenix.analogic.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.211); Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:35:04 -0400 > X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5.7226.0 > Original-Received: from chaos.analogic.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by chaos.analogic.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id k8SJZ4wS031736; Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:35:04 -0400 > Original-Received: (from linux-os@localhost) by chaos.analogic.com (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id k8SJYweF031733; Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:34:58 -0400 > X-OriginalArrivalTime: 28 Sep 2006 19:35:04.0187 (UTC) FILETIME=[3236ECB0:01C6E335] > Content-class: urn:content-classes:message > In-Reply-To: <E4B98A24-5632-4DA5-AD3A-37396D5EF1B3@kernel.crashing.org> > X-MS-Has-Attach: > X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: > Thread-Topic: GPLv3 Position Statement > thread-index: AcbjNTJAPIVMpED0T6+AOQGqDk9Jbw== > Original-To: "Segher Boessenkool" <segher@kernel.crashing.org> > Original-Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org > Precedence: bulk > X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.linux.kernel:450959 > Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/450959> > > > On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Segher Boessenkool wrote: > >>> However, now some are beginning to see the light as history >>> continues to be rewritten and a history lesson is unfolding. >> >>> These efforts go back to the days when >>> "distributions" consisted of 56 floppy disks and Linus was >>> in Helsinki, working on his degree. The FSF didn't exist, and >>> GNU was the name of an immature compiler. >> >> The FSF was founded in 1985, now who is rewriting history >> here :-) "GNU" never was the name for the compiler, either. >> > > No. GNU was coined in 1984-85 (depending upon the source). > It was a recursive 'GNU Not Unix', and referred to some free > tools, including Eimacs. One of the most important tools > was a compiler which could be readily ported to new operating > systems. The GNU compiler was used in an attempt to make > Hurd, an early Unix clone. It was also used by BSD and Linux. > >>> Sometimes we need >>> to be reminded of the history of a particular thing because, >>> once out-of-mind, history tends to be rewritten by those who >>> would advance in its new "interpretation." >> >> I don't really want to know what you try to gain by this >> "properly composed statement", heh. >> >> Segher >> > > FYI, the place to research your information is not on www.gnu.org or > Wikipedia, both of which are too self-serving (in this area) to be used > as a reference. You need to dig deeper or ask someone who was there. Or just look on e-mail headers of who is talking to you. > Cheers, > Dick Johnson > Penguin : Linux version 2.6.16.24 on an i686 machine (5592.66 BogoMips). Hmm... > New book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/ > _ > \x1a\x04 > > **************************************************************** > The information transmitted in this message is confidential and may be privileged. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or other use of this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify Analogic Corporation immediately - by replying to this message or by sending an email to DeliveryErrors@analogic.com - and destroy all copies of this information, including any attachments, without reading or disclosing them. Hmmmmmm..... > Thank you. No, no, thank you. Very much. -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 20:01 ` Oleg Verych @ 2006-09-28 23:12 ` Gene Heskett 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-28 23:12 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel On Thursday 28 September 2006 16:01, Oleg Verych wrote: > >Or just look on e-mail headers of who is talking to you. > >> Cheers, >> Dick Johnson >> Penguin : Linux version 2.6.16.24 on an i686 machine (5592.66 >> BogoMips). > >Hmm... > >> New book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/ Interesting indeed, someone who succeeded, I take it by grabbing his own bootlaces. [...] >Hmmmmmm..... > >> Thank you. > >No, no, thank you. Very much. And thank you for the link. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 17:16 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 2006-09-28 18:59 ` Segher Boessenkool @ 2006-09-29 8:04 ` Jan Engelhardt 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-29 8:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-os (Dick Johnson) Cc: Linus Torvalds, Patrick McFarland, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel > >Every time I accidentally execute `uname` with an -a instead of >a -r, I am reminded of the history rewrite as I am presented with: > >Linux chaos.analogic.com 2.6.16.24 #1 SMP PREEMPT > Wed Jul 12 11:32:34 EDT 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux > ^^^^^^^^^ Do you even know what that field is supposed to be? Right, it is `uname -o`, and not `uname -s`. Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 0:18 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 0:54 ` Patrick McFarland @ 2006-09-28 1:35 ` Al Viro 2006-09-28 3:13 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 1:53 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-28 9:41 ` Jörn Engel 3 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Al Viro @ 2006-09-28 1:35 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 05:18:42PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > Because the even _deeper_ rift between the FSF and the whole "Open Source" > community is not over "Tivo" or any particular detail like that, but > between "practical and useful" and "ideology". ... and then there are those of us who know very well what ideology is: the choice weapon of talentless hacks hell-bent on gaining and keeping influence and never doing original research or any other honest work. Al "I've grown up in USSR and USA feels just like home" Viro ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 1:35 ` Al Viro @ 2006-09-28 3:13 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 3:36 ` Linus Torvalds 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-28 3:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Al Viro Cc: Linus Torvalds, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Thu, 2006-09-28 at 02:35 +0100, Al Viro wrote: > On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 05:18:42PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > Because the even _deeper_ rift between the FSF and the whole "Open Source" > > community is not over "Tivo" or any particular detail like that, but > > between "practical and useful" and "ideology". > > ... and then there are those of us who know very well what ideology is: > the choice weapon of talentless hacks hell-bent on gaining and keeping > influence and never doing original research or any other honest work. Please, do not tell me you had RMS in mind when you wrote it! > Al "I've grown up in USSR and USA feels just like home" Viro Right! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 3:13 ` Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-28 3:36 ` Linus Torvalds 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 3:36 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Sergey Panov Cc: Al Viro, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Sergey Panov wrote: > > Please, do not tell me you had RMS in mind when you wrote it! You're talking to Al "even less polite than Linus" Viro, so I wouldn't take any bets on it. Or he might be talking about me. There's a reason Al is widely feared in the linux-kernel mailing list community. The Mexicans have the Chupacabra. We have Al Viro. If you hear him roar, just _pray_ he's about to dissect somebody elses code than yours.. There is no point in running. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 0:18 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 0:54 ` Patrick McFarland 2006-09-28 1:35 ` Al Viro @ 2006-09-28 1:53 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-28 9:41 ` Jörn Engel 3 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Alan Cox @ 2006-09-28 1:53 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Ar Mer, 2006-09-27 am 17:18 -0700, ysgrifennodd Linus Torvalds: > _not_ been unknown to the people involved. Trust me, the FSF knew > very well that the kernel standpoint on the GPLv2 was that Tivo was s/kernel/Linus and some other copyright holders/ I reserve the right some day to attempt to sue the ass of people who tivo-ise my code. Hey I might lose but I reserve the right to. That said the FSF DRM clause is problematic, the GPLv2 leaves things in a slightly woolly situation with regards to keys in terms of whether they are part of the scripts etc (for the benefit of anyone's corporate lawyers: I think they usually are and I've said so in public). That vagueness is actually a good thing because it lets the legal system interpret the intent of the license and the situation at hand. Lawyers generally don't like vaguenesses of course and the GPLv3 draft tries to be non-vague. It's also flawed as a result precisely because it has to cover every imaginable case in one paragraph. There are lots of problems with the current v3 draft 1. "anything users can regenerate automatically" is horribly vague. Automatically *how* - with a $25,000 proprietary tool for example .... 2. Section 3 is US specific and doesn't really work. In some parts of the world breaking a technological protection seems to be a criminal matter and you can't waive the criminal law. 3. Additional terms is a license explosion and the interactions between them will get ugly. 4. The geographical clause still has the same bug as GPLv2. Who is the "original author" and what happens when I write a new OS and import 90% of Linux into it - am I the original author now ? Some of this is quite fixable - the "regenerate automatically" for example and the glitches in the patent clauses are just a matter of a little more lawyering, others like the DRM clauses don't work and also don't really address rented equipment for example. Personally I'm still hopeful the final GPLv3 will fix at least the majority of problems. I'm not sure it ultimately matters for the kernel whether it does or not, but for the general case of free software it is clearly important to get it right. Alan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 0:18 ` Linus Torvalds ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2006-09-28 1:53 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-09-28 9:41 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 9:55 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-28 14:40 ` Linus Torvalds 3 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jörn Engel @ 2006-09-28 9:41 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 27 September 2006 17:18:42 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > In fact, most programmers _still_ probably > don't care. A lot of people use a license not because they "chose" > it, but because they work on a project where somebody else chose the > license for them originally. s/most programmers/some programmers/ While I can only speak for myself, I definitely had to make a decision a couple of times without starting a kernel myself. Red Hat wanted me to sign a piece of small-font paper assigning my copyright to JFFS2 over to them. My thoughts at the time were along the lines of "What the fuck!!" and I had a lot of thinking to do, but didn't sign it. My graph traversion code I did for my thesis should have been merged into gcc, but I didn't even bother sending a patch. Copyright assign my ***, thank you very much. And that is in fact the primary reason, hacking gcc has been fun and I would like to do more, from a purely technical point of view. But having to sign a large amount of legalese is the kind of thing I may have to do for a job, and they pay me for it. It is not the kind of thing I do for fun. No fun, no money - hell, why should I do something like that?!? Thank you for not requiring copyright assignments, Linus. Jörn -- People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first. -- unknown ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 9:41 ` Jörn Engel @ 2006-09-28 9:55 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-28 14:45 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 14:40 ` Linus Torvalds 1 sibling, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-28 9:55 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jörn Engel Cc: Linus Torvalds, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Jörn Engel wrote: > My graph traversion code I did for my thesis should have been merged > into gcc, but I didn't even bother sending a patch. Copyright assign > my ***, thank you very much. hehe For the miniscule patches I have contributed to gcc, I donated them to the public domain... > Thank you for not requiring copyright assignments, Linus. Indeed. Jeff ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 9:55 ` Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-28 14:45 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 15:19 ` Alan Cox 0 siblings, 1 reply; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 14:45 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jeff Garzik Cc: Jörn Engel, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Jeff Garzik wrote: > > For the miniscule patches I have contributed to gcc, I donated them to the > public domain... Btw, I tried that wit the code I had, it didn't work. It might depend on the person you're working with. I was told "We need your assignment on file". Some maintainers might be more careful. I have been told that legally, "putting something in the public domain" isn't actually really possible in the US, but maybe that is something that lawyers disagree about. You can assign or transfer your copyrights (in writing, on real paper only!) or you can license it, but "public domain" seems to be hard. Unless you just want to wait for several decades after your death (and that's hoping that Disney doesn't extend it even more after you die). Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 14:45 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 15:19 ` Alan Cox 0 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Alan Cox @ 2006-09-28 15:19 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Jeff Garzik, Jörn Engel, Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Ar Iau, 2006-09-28 am 07:45 -0700, ysgrifennodd Linus Torvalds: > I have been told that legally, "putting something in the public domain" > isn't actually really possible in the US, but maybe that is something that > lawyers disagree about. Its also a very bad idea for another reason. In some parts of the world placing something in the public domain doesn't imply any kind of warranty or liability disclaimer. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 9:41 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 9:55 ` Jeff Garzik @ 2006-09-28 14:40 ` Linus Torvalds 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 14:40 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jörn Engel Cc: Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel [-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 1909 bytes --] On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Jörn Engel wrote: > > My graph traversion code I did for my thesis should have been merged > into gcc, but I didn't even bother sending a patch. Copyright assign > my ***, thank you very much. Yeah, I don't see why the FSF does that. Or I kind of see why, but it has always struck me as (a) against the whole point of the license and (b) who the F*CK do they think they are? I refuse to just sign over any copyrights I have. I gave you a license to use them, if you can't live with that, then go fish in somebody elses pond. I had some code I tried to give to glibc back when I was doing Linux/axp, since glibc was really in pretty sad shape in some areas. I think I had a integer divide routine that was something like five times faster than the one in glibc, and about a tenth of the size. Things like that. So I wanted to give things back, but ended up just throwing in the towel and said "ok, if they don't want the code, whatever..". If somebody pays me real bucks, I'll work for them, and I'm perfectly ok with letting them own copyright in the end result (ie I've done commercial software too, and I think it's only reasonable that since I did it for pay, I don't own that software myself). But copyright assignments "just because we want to control the end result"? No thank you. > And that is in fact the primary reason, hacking gcc has been fun and I > would like to do more, from a purely technical point of view. But > having to sign a large amount of legalese is the kind of thing I may > have to do for a job, and they pay me for it. It is not the kind of > thing I do for fun. No fun, no money - hell, why should I do > something like that?!? > > Thank you for not requiring copyright assignments, Linus. I _hate_ copyright assignments. Maybe it's a European thing. Of course, I also hate paperwork, so maybe it's just a "lazy" thing. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 23:16 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-28 0:03 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-28 0:18 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 2:34 ` Gene Heskett 2 siblings, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Gene Heskett @ 2006-09-28 2:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel Cc: Chase Venters, Theodore Tso, Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley On Wednesday 27 September 2006 19:16, Chase Venters wrote: >On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Theodore Tso wrote: >> On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 01:37:37PM -0500, Chase Venters wrote: >>> I think one thing that should have happened a _lot_ sooner is that you >>> and others should have made clear to the startled community that you >>> object precisely to the anti-Tivoization clause, not because of any >>> technical reason or interpretation but because you don't see anything >>> wrong with Tivo's use of Linux. It would have been nice but totally >>> optional to engage in dialogue with the FSF. But slandering them about >>> their license development process, or their intentions with regard to >>> using Linux as leverage, is counterproductive whether true or not. >> >> This has been made clear to Eben and the FSF, for a long time. The >> FSF has simply chosen not to listen to Linus and other members of the >> kernel community. In fact, I've never seen any interest in a >> dialogue, just a pseudo-dialogue where "input is solicited", and then >> as near as far as I can tell, at least on the anti-Tivo issue, has >> been simply ignored. But in any case, it should not have come as a >> surprise and should not have startled anyone. > >Perhaps I came off too strong, but I meant what I said, and I'm not only >talking about things being made clear with Eben and the FSF. Frankly, I >don't know what did or did not happen behind closed doors and it would be >wrong of me to make assumptions about that. > >What I was really addressing here is that the whole F/OSS community >exploded over the news that Linux was not adopting the GPLv3. I think > it's fair to say that the reason why Linux is not adopting GPLv3 (aside > from the very practical matter of gaining the consensus of copyright > holders) is that Linus and other top copyright holders don't think what > Tivo is doing is wrong. But when that statement first came out, it was > almost lost in the noise of "The FSF is not going to listen to us, and > what about encryption keys?" The former probably has no place outside of > LKML; the latter is the sort of thing you'd bring up at gplv3.fsf.org if > you wanted to participate in the process. > And this last statement pulls my trigger, Chase. Admittedly, the kernel is not the whole of linux, and never has been, but without it, where are we? Based on that, I find the attitude of the FSF to be downright overbearing when they expect each and every one of the KERNEL developers to go get an account and go through all the lollygagging around it takes to actually leave a message through the channels the FSF expects you to use. I don't care what you call it, it boils down at the end of the day to a PITA. I'm here as a lurker, and potentially a small bit of wisdom based on nothing more than my somewhat advanced age, but it seems to me that if the FSF wanted real input from the guys & gals submitting patches on a daily basis, then they owed it to ALL of you to come to this list and ASK! AND GIVE WEIGHT TO THE ANSWERS GIVEN. The fact that they didn't do this in an open discussion forum such as this, speaks whole sets of encyclopedias vis-a-vis their apparent consideration (or should I say disdain?) for those that do the real work. This, FSF & RMS, is all about 'open' source, so bring the discussion to an 'open' forum instead of treating the movers & shakers present here in such large numbers as just so much rabble, to be blown away with the water cannon of your so-called legal wisdom when we get unruly. Well, seeing as how we must be rabble, now we've been roused. Bring your arguments to the table and let a consensus, if indeed there can be one, gradually form in a manner that all can at least agree to disagree on. And do it in plain language that even some who do not speak english as a first language can easily understand. We need comprehension, not legaleze. >So a lot of people spent a lot of time thinking Linus was just confused >about the license and its intentions and that if they could just show him >why he was reading it wrong he'd change his mind. The point I'm trying >to make here about what _should_ have happened a lot sooner is that the >problem should have been defined in the simplest possible terms: "We > don't want to cut off Tivo. We don't think they are in the wrong." Then > it boils down to a simple difference in philosophy and everyone can move > on. > >> Regards, >> >> - Ted > >Thanks, >Chase Venters -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 17:28 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-27 18:37 ` Chase Venters @ 2006-09-28 8:04 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-28 13:50 ` Christer Weinigel 2006-09-28 20:43 ` Linus Torvalds 1 sibling, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-28 8:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds; +Cc: Alan Cox, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel >People don't have a clue! > >The GPLv2 never _ever_ mentions "linking" or any other technical measure >at all. Doing so would just be stupid (another problem with the GPLv3, >btw). So people who think that the GPLv2 disallows "linking" with >non-GPLv2 code had better go back and read the license again. > >Grep for it, if you want to. The word "link" simply DOES NOT EXIST IN THE >LICENSE! Hah then read LICENSE.LGPL! """Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary GNU General Public License. This license, the GNU Lesser General Public License, applies to certain designated libraries, and is quite different from the ordinary General Public License. We use this license for certain libraries in order to permit linking those libraries into non-free programs.""" If the GPL does not mention linking at all, and therefore does not really forbid it, why do we need an LGPL to allow linking then? >What the GPLv2 actually talks about is _only_ about "derived work". And >whether linking (dynamically, statically, or by using an army of worker >gnomes that re-arrange the bits to their liking) means something is >"derived or not" is a totally different issue, and is not something you >can actually say one way or the other, because it will depend on the >circumstances. I would be of the opinion that dynamic linking does not make it a derived work, because neither the ld program nor the ld-linux.so dynamic linker knows whether -lfoo is actually GPL or not. >> No. The definition of a derivative work is a legal one and not a >> technical one. And that is a major problem IMHO. If there is no definitive [technical] answer to what constitues a derived work, and it leaves you at risk to lose a case in court while it is a gray area. Oh well back on the topic: A userspace app just is not a derivate work of the kernel, for me at least. >Now, it is also indisputable that if you _need_ to "link", it's a damn >good sign that something is _very_likely_ to be derivative, but as Alan >points out, you could do the same thing with RPC over a socket, and the >fact that you did it technically differently really makes no real >difference. So linking per se isn't the issue, and never has been. Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 8:04 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-28 13:50 ` Christer Weinigel 2006-09-28 20:43 ` Linus Torvalds 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Christer Weinigel @ 2006-09-28 13:50 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt Cc: Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@linux01.gwdg.de> writes: > Hah then read LICENSE.LGPL! > > """Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the > ordinary GNU General Public License. This license, the GNU Lesser > General Public License, applies to certain designated libraries, and > is quite different from the ordinary General Public License. We use > this license for certain libraries in order to permit linking those > libraries into non-free programs.""" > > If the GPL does not mention linking at all, and therefore does not > really forbid it, why do we need an LGPL to allow linking then? Clarification, just as the system call clarification in the Linux kernel COPYING file. By explicitly allowing dynamic linking the LGPL makes it clear that it is ok and avoids a lot of legal uncertainty. It may be that the that linking doesn't legally create a derived work, and that a bunch of the claims in the GPL are invalid, but to find out somebody has to bring it to court, get a judgement (not a settlement), and appeal it all the way to the supreme court. And to be really sure they'd have to do it in just about every country too. /Christer -- "Just how much can I get away with and still go to heaven?" Christer Weinigel <christer@weinigel.se> http://www.weinigel.se ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-28 8:04 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-28 13:50 ` Christer Weinigel @ 2006-09-28 20:43 ` Linus Torvalds 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 20:43 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt; +Cc: Alan Cox, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > > >People don't have a clue! > > > >Grep for it, if you want to. The word "link" simply DOES NOT EXIST IN THE > >LICENSE! > > Hah then read LICENSE.LGPL! Thank you for proving my point. The part you quote aren't part of the license. They're in the same file, but they are separate from the actual text of the license. It's called the "preamble", and you should really realize what it means. The _license_ is the legal part. It's the thing between "terms and conditions" and "end of terms and conditions". I like being right, but I hate being proven right quite so quickly. (Btw, the license you quoted wasn't even the GPL. The LGPL - which is a totally different thing - _does_ indeed talk about "linking", but the part you quoted wasn't even _in_ that license, so it was kind of doubly silly to bring that part up, now wasn't it?) > If the GPL does not mention linking at all, and therefore does not > really forbid it, why do we need an LGPL to allow linking then? Where did you learn logic? The GPL doesn't mention linking, because the GPL only talks about derived works. The LGPL talks about linking, because it wants to _narrow_ its scope from "derived works" to something smaller, and makes it clear that even within a derived work, the technical thing of "linking" actually consitutes a license boundary. However, the fact IN NO WAY logically implies the reverse is true. The fact that you link (or not) _in_itself_ does not necessarily imply a boundary of derived works. Your logic is so horribly flawed that it's not even funny. It's the same thing as if you said - Aristotle is a man - I am not Aristotle - Therefore I am not a man Please take a course in Logic 101. Linus PS. Just so that you don't confuse things _again_, I'd like to repeat: pretty much everybody would agree that linking is often a damn strong reason to believe the things are related and probably derived works. But it's not at all a logical conclusion, and it's not at all necessarily always right. "Derived work" is a lot more complicated than that. Linking with a GPL'd version of a standard C library (ie a non-GPL'd version would have worked equally well, and you just did it becasue you didn't think) would be very possibly (even likely) not be considered to be a "derived work", but "mere aggregation". Think about that for a moment. And realize that the reason people then use the LGPL is that with that license, the question above never even comes up. So you're on much safer ground, and you don't have to worry about crazy people suing you. A lot of legal stuff is not just to avoid illegal things, but to _obviously_ avoid them. You never really want to be even close to the edge. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 8:58 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-27 12:19 ` Alan Cox @ 2006-09-27 18:01 ` Theodore Tso 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Theodore Tso @ 2006-09-27 18:01 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt; +Cc: Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 10:58:41AM +0200, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > >... ???. I am not so sure. Kernel is really a small thing. The VMWare > >proprietary hyper-visor was/is reusing Linux drivers with ease, why BSD or > >Hurd can not do the same? As a former (Linux) driver writer I like to show the > >following numbers to my friends: > > Oh well I was rather interpreting the question as "What about Hurd?" and > my answer was the same from the Hurd page last time I read it. > "It's not so complete to make up a production system." or similar. Well, that will be very simple. If the Hurd gets relicensed to be GPLv3, it won't be able to use Linux kernel device drivers any more, because they will be GPLv2, and the GPLv2 and GPLv3 licenses are incompatible. But that's the FSF's problem, not ours... - Ted ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 5:55 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-27 7:36 ` Sergey Panov @ 2006-09-27 12:32 ` Theodore Tso 2006-09-27 21:05 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-29 12:47 ` Pavel Machek 2006-09-27 17:00 ` Linus Torvalds 2 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Theodore Tso @ 2006-09-27 12:32 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt; +Cc: Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 07:55:41AM +0200, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > If by operating system you mean the surrounding userland application, > then yes, why should there be a problem with a GPL2 kernel and a GPL3 > userland? After all, the userland is not only GPL, but also BSD and > other stuff. Actually, the biggest problem will likely be userland applications and shared libraries. Many people believe that the GPL infects across shared library links. Whether or not that's true, it's never been tested in court, and probably depends on the legal jurisdiction. In any case, many parts of the community, and certainly distributions like Debian, behave as if the GPL infects across shared libraries. But if that's true, then we have a big problem, because just as the CDDL is incompatible with GPLv2, so too is the GPLv3 incompatible with GPLv2. (It has to be; the whole point of the GPLv3 is to fix "bugs" such as spiking out companies considered evil like Tivo. If you're going to make the argument that there are no differences and so the GPLv2 and v3 are compatible, then why are we wasting all of this time and money on GPLv3?) And if there are additional restrictoins in GPLv3 (and I've never heard Eben deny it), then there's nothing you can do in GPLv3 to fix the compatibility problem, because GPLv3 has more restrictions than GPLv2, and the GPLv2 prohibits additional restrictions. So the incompatibility is forced from the GPLv2 side, and no textual changes in GPLv3 can possibly hope to fix things. Hence, for userspace code which is licensed under a GPLv2 only license, it must be strictly incompatible with any GPLv3 shared library. And given that Stallman has announced that the new LGPL will be (to use programming terms) a subclass of GPLv3, it means that the LGPLv3 is by extension incompatible with the GPLv2. So that means that there will have to be two different versions of glibc (and every other shared library) shipped with every distributions --- one which is GPLv2, and one which is GPLv3. And this fork is going to be forced by the FSF! So that brings up an interesting question --- which fork is Uhlrich Drepper going to continue to work on? The GPLv2 or GPLv3 version? :-) - Ted P.S. I guess there is another alternative, which is that all shared libraries must be dual licensed under a "your choice of LGPLv2 or LGPLv3". Of course, then that won't prohibit CCE's (Companies Considered as Evil) from using said code. And certainly, for people who care more about code reuse, I would urge them to dual license their code, since otherwise GPLv2 and GPLv3 code will not be able to coexist, and the FSF will be making the license fragmentation problem even worse for everyone, just to pursue their political goals. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* RE: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 12:32 ` Theodore Tso @ 2006-09-27 21:05 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-29 12:47 ` Pavel Machek 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: David Schwartz @ 2006-09-27 21:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org > Many people believe that the GPL infects across > shared library links. Whether or not that's true, it's never been > tested in court, and probably depends on the legal jurisdiction. It's absurd and has been thoroughly refuted many times. A program can link with a shared library that was wholly developed *after* that program was developed. How can a work be a derivative work of a work that was made after it and fully independently of it? The GPL only infects derivative works. You cannot create a work that must be subject to the GPL unless you creatively copy significant protectable expression from a GPL'd work when you create that work. For example, I write a program that dynamically links to a 'malloc.so' library. You then later write your own 'malloc.so' library with some funky allocator in it and you GPL it. Nobody could ever sanely argue that someone linking my program with your library changes the licensing requirements of my program. The law is really quite clear that one work can only be derivative work of another if it contains significant protectable expression copied from that work. [from another post] > But OTOH, linking code makes it a combined work. Linking does not create a work, it only combines existing works. Dynamic linking is not a creative authoring process and cannot produce a work for copyright purposes, derivative or otherwise. There certainly might be cases where two works dynamically link to each other and one is also a derivative work of the other. But such a general rule totally defies common sense. The law is clear that a derivative work is made when you creatively take significant protected expression from another work, beyond what is needed for interoperability. Linking may make a work in an informal sense, but it does not create a work for copyright purposes. Only creative expression makes a work. Linkers do not express themselves creatively, artfully picking and choosing one among dozens of equally-valid options. DS ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 12:32 ` Theodore Tso 2006-09-27 21:05 ` David Schwartz @ 2006-09-29 12:47 ` Pavel Machek 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Pavel Machek @ 2006-09-29 12:47 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Theodore Tso, Jan Engelhardt, Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel Hi! > And given that Stallman has announced that the new LGPL will be (to > use programming terms) a subclass of GPLv3, it means that the LGPLv3 > is by extension incompatible with the GPLv2. So that means that there > will have to be two different versions of glibc (and every other > shared library) shipped with every distributions --- one which is > GPLv2, and one which is GPLv3. And this fork is going to be forced by > the FSF! Whats the problem? FSF does not do any programming itself. It will force a fork, but world will just ignore the fork for glibc. -- Thanks for all the (sleeping) penguins. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 5:55 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-27 7:36 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-27 12:32 ` Theodore Tso @ 2006-09-27 17:00 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 8:18 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-28 9:39 ` Samuel Tardieu 2 siblings, 2 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-27 17:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jan Engelhardt; +Cc: Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > > If by operating system you mean the surrounding userland application, > then yes, why should there be a problem with a GPL2 kernel and a GPL3 > userland? After all, the userland is not only GPL, but also BSD and > other stuff. Indeed. We have no trouble at all running programs with much worse licenses than the GPLv3 (ie commercial programs). There is no problem with user space being v3. > >The last Q. is how good is the almost forgotten Hurd kernel? > > Wild guess: At most on par with Minix. ...and here's a thing that most people forget: good code simply doesn't care about ideology, and ideology often does the wrong technical decisions because it's not about practical issues. The watch-word in Linux development has been "pragmatism". That's probably part of what drives the FSF wild about Linux in the first place. I care about _practical_ issues, not about wild goose chases. If I weren't into computers, I'd be in science. And the rules in science are the same: you simply can't do good science if you start with an agenda. If you say that you'll never touch high-energy physics because you find the atom bomb to be morally reprehensible, that's your right, but you have to also realize that then you can never actually understand the world, and do everything you may need to do. I've often compared Open Source development vs proprietary development to science vs witchcraft (or alchemy). In many ways, the GPLv3 is about "religion". They limit the technology because they are afraid of it. It's not that different from a religious standpoint that some research is "bad" - because it undermines the religious beliefs of the people. You'll find extremists in the US saying that things like evolution is an affront to very basic human morals, the exact same way that rms talks about DRM being "evil". I want to be a "scientist". I want people to be able to repeat the experiments, logic, and measurements (that's very much what science is about - you don't just trust people saying that the world works some way), but being a scientist doesn't mean that you should let other scientists into your own laboratory or into your own home. That would be just crazy talk. So as a "scientist", I describe in sufficient detail my theory and the results, so that anybody else in the world can replicate them. But they can replicate them in their _own_ laboratories, thank you very much. That's what open source is all about. It's about _scientific_ ideals. It's not on a moral crusade, and it never has been. The point behind all this: even if the Hurd didn't depend on Linux code (and as far as I know, it does, but since I think they have their design heads firmly up their *sses anyway with that whole microkernel thing, I've never felt it was worth my time even looking at their code), I don't believe a religiously motivated development community can ever generate as good code except by pure chance. Linus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 17:00 ` Linus Torvalds @ 2006-09-28 8:18 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-28 9:39 ` Samuel Tardieu 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-28 8:18 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Linus Torvalds; +Cc: Sergey Panov, James Bottomley, linux-kernel >> >The last Q. is how good is the almost forgotten Hurd kernel? >> >> Wild guess: At most on par with Minix. > >...and here's a thing that most people forget: good code simply doesn't >care about ideology, and ideology often does the wrong technical decisions >because it's not about practical issues. > >The watch-word in Linux development has been "pragmatism". That's probably >part of what drives the FSF wild about Linux in the first place. I care >about _practical_ issues, not about wild goose chases. > >If I weren't into computers, I'd be in science. And the rules in science >are the same: you simply can't do good science if you start with an >agenda. If you say that you'll never touch high-energy physics because >you find the atom bomb to be morally reprehensible, that's your right, but >you have to also realize that then you can never actually understand the >world, and do everything you may need to do. >[...] >In many ways, the GPLv3 is about "religion". They limit the technology [...] Oops, I think we misunderstand each other right now. I took the above question as how functional (=good) is Hurd. I did not mean to talk about licensing here. Jan Engelhardt -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 17:00 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 8:18 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-28 9:39 ` Samuel Tardieu 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Samuel Tardieu @ 2006-09-28 9:39 UTC (permalink / raw) To: linux-kernel >>>>> "Linus" == Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> writes: Linus> We have no trouble at all running programs with much worse Linus> licenses than the GPLv3 (ie commercial programs). There is no Linus> problem with user space being v3. I guess you mean "proprietary" instead of "commercial" here. Sam -- Samuel Tardieu -- sam@rfc1149.net -- http://www.rfc1149.net/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
* Re: GPLv3 Position Statement 2006-09-27 1:11 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-27 5:55 ` Jan Engelhardt @ 2006-09-27 16:08 ` Greg KH 1 sibling, 0 replies; 188+ messages in thread From: Greg KH @ 2006-09-27 16:08 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Sergey Panov; +Cc: James Bottomley, linux-kernel On Tue, Sep 26, 2006 at 09:11:47PM -0400, Sergey Panov wrote: > > The last Q. is how good is the almost forgotten Hurd kernel? Note that Hurd has a lot of Linux driver code in it, which probably can not be changed to GPLv3... thanks, greg k-h ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 188+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2006-10-04 20:53 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 188+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2006-09-22 16:15 GPLv3 Position Statement James Bottomley 2006-09-22 16:16 ` James Bottomley 2006-09-22 17:49 ` The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? Adrian Bunk 2006-09-22 18:00 ` Greg KH 2006-09-22 18:01 ` Manu Abraham 2006-09-22 20:04 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-22 21:25 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-22 21:44 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-23 0:11 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-23 1:36 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-23 7:28 ` Paul Jackson 2006-09-23 8:05 ` Manu Abraham 2006-09-23 15:32 ` Oleg Verych [not found] ` <Pine.LNX.4.64.0609230941530.4388@g5.osdl.org> 2006-09-23 21:04 ` Forwarded message from Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> Oleg Verych 2006-09-27 1:19 ` The GPL: No shelter for the Linux kernel? Oleg Verych 2006-09-23 8:10 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-23 17:38 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-23 18:00 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-23 18:14 ` Petr Baudis 2006-09-24 7:53 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-24 16:34 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-25 5:59 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-25 15:14 ` Linus Torvalds [not found] ` <200609221359.39519.gene.heskett@verizon.net> 2006-09-22 18:08 ` GPLv3 Position Statement James Bottomley 2006-09-22 18:30 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-22 18:34 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-22 18:52 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-22 19:05 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-22 18:54 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-25 6:33 ` Marc Perkel 2006-09-22 20:42 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-23 11:38 ` Florian Weimer 2006-09-25 2:44 ` An Ode to GPLv2 (was Re: GPLv3 Position Statement) Linus Torvalds 2006-09-25 4:40 ` Willy Tarreau 2006-09-25 12:00 ` Arjan van de Ven 2006-09-25 13:07 ` Willy Tarreau 2006-09-28 0:12 ` H. Peter Anvin 2006-09-25 8:53 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Michiel de Boer 2006-09-25 9:06 ` Russell King 2006-09-25 10:51 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-25 11:31 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-25 16:10 ` Thomas Gleixner 2006-09-29 10:15 ` Helge Hafting 2006-09-29 11:07 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-29 14:02 ` Stephen Clark 2006-09-29 16:51 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 17:47 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-29 17:49 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 18:17 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 18:26 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-29 18:27 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 18:40 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 19:59 ` alan 2006-09-29 20:06 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 20:21 ` alan 2006-09-29 20:32 ` alan 2006-09-29 23:12 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-29 23:25 ` Randy Dunlap 2006-09-29 23:53 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-30 0:31 ` Vadim Lobanov 2006-09-30 3:36 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-30 4:37 ` Vadim Lobanov 2006-09-30 4:54 ` Randy Dunlap 2006-09-30 6:10 ` Vadim Lobanov 2006-09-29 21:11 ` Chris Smith 2006-09-29 21:33 ` alan 2006-09-29 20:51 ` alan 2006-09-29 21:25 ` Theodore Tso 2006-09-29 21:29 ` Alan Cox 2006-10-02 8:46 ` Helge Hafting 2006-09-29 19:43 ` jdow 2006-09-30 18:38 ` Thomas Gleixner 2006-09-30 20:49 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-30 20:38 ` Thomas Gleixner 2006-09-25 14:27 ` Lee Revell 2006-09-25 19:05 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-25 20:58 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-25 22:10 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 2006-09-26 21:32 ` Oleg Verych 2006-09-25 19:46 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-25 21:10 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-25 11:11 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-25 14:12 ` James Bottomley 2006-09-25 16:50 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-25 17:26 ` James Bottomley 2006-09-25 15:30 ` Xavier Bestel 2006-09-27 1:11 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-27 5:55 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-27 7:36 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-27 8:58 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-27 12:19 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-27 17:28 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-27 18:37 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-27 19:11 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 12:42 ` Pavel Machek 2006-09-27 22:58 ` Theodore Tso 2006-09-27 23:16 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-28 0:03 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-28 0:08 ` David Miller 2006-09-28 0:18 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 0:54 ` Patrick McFarland 2006-09-28 3:15 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 3:47 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 4:13 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 5:05 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 4:39 ` Chase Venters 2006-09-28 5:13 ` Trond Myklebust 2006-09-28 5:15 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-28 5:27 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 5:34 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-28 7:30 ` Al Viro 2006-09-28 13:55 ` Lennart Sorensen 2006-09-28 14:19 ` DervishD 2006-09-28 14:40 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 14:59 ` DervishD 2006-09-28 15:04 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 15:20 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 15:31 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 15:46 ` Björn Steinbrink 2006-09-28 15:24 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 0:26 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-29 6:22 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 1:34 ` jdow 2006-09-29 6:08 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-29 7:07 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-29 2:29 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-29 2:45 ` Neil Brown 2006-09-29 3:05 ` Björn Steinbrink 2006-09-29 3:31 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-29 5:37 ` Björn Steinbrink 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz [not found] ` <20060928225008.ded4fa2c.seanlkml@sympatico.ca> 2006-09-29 2:50 ` Sean 2006-09-29 7:18 ` David Schwartz 2006-10-02 8:55 ` Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? Marc Perkel 2006-10-02 9:14 ` Jesper Juhl 2006-10-02 9:23 ` Marc Perkel 2006-10-03 10:31 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-10-03 15:34 ` Marc Perkel 2006-10-02 9:18 ` Dumitru Ciobarcianu 2006-10-02 9:25 ` Patrick McFarland 2006-10-02 18:26 ` James Dickens 2006-10-03 20:59 ` Ivan Dimitrov 2006-10-03 21:00 ` Chase Venters 2006-10-03 21:17 ` It's not GNU/Linux - it's jusy LINUX Marc Perkel 2006-10-03 21:41 ` Neil Brown 2006-10-04 20:09 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-10-04 20:53 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 2006-10-03 21:41 ` Adam Henley 2006-10-03 21:47 ` Marc Perkel 2006-10-03 21:58 ` Chase Venters 2006-10-03 22:00 ` Hua Zhong 2006-10-04 1:17 ` Patrick Draper 2006-10-04 2:06 ` Patrick McFarland 2006-10-04 15:16 ` Patrick Draper 2006-10-03 22:10 ` M4y3c0 2006-10-03 22:02 ` Maybe it's time to fork the GPL License - create the Linux license? Daniel Barkalow 2006-09-28 14:51 ` GPLv3 Position Statement Simon Oosthoek 2006-09-28 15:07 ` DervishD 2006-09-28 15:38 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 18:34 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 17:16 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 2006-09-28 18:59 ` Segher Boessenkool 2006-09-28 19:34 ` linux-os (Dick Johnson) 2006-09-28 20:01 ` Oleg Verych 2006-09-28 23:12 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-29 8:04 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-28 1:35 ` Al Viro 2006-09-28 3:13 ` Sergey Panov 2006-09-28 3:36 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 1:53 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-28 9:41 ` Jörn Engel 2006-09-28 9:55 ` Jeff Garzik 2006-09-28 14:45 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 15:19 ` Alan Cox 2006-09-28 14:40 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 2:34 ` Gene Heskett 2006-09-28 8:04 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-28 13:50 ` Christer Weinigel 2006-09-28 20:43 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-27 18:01 ` Theodore Tso 2006-09-27 12:32 ` Theodore Tso 2006-09-27 21:05 ` David Schwartz 2006-09-29 12:47 ` Pavel Machek 2006-09-27 17:00 ` Linus Torvalds 2006-09-28 8:18 ` Jan Engelhardt 2006-09-28 9:39 ` Samuel Tardieu 2006-09-27 16:08 ` Greg KH
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