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Software emancipation: An open letter to Linus Torvalds
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Comments (4)
What TC said.
Also, it's been well established that Linus can't move the kernel to GPLv3 (even if he wanted to) without the permissions of all of the other code contributors (even the dead ones), why would anyone think he could "fork" it without the same permissions?
Also, it's been well established that Linus can't move the kernel to GPLv3 (even if he wanted to) without the permissions of all of the other code contributors (even the dead ones), why would anyone think he could "fork" it without the same permissions?
TC -
One word: Coffee.
OK, that's not enough. Not nearly.
Why is it that every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks they can craft a freakin' license? Even if they could, why do they think they need to?
So far as I can tell, Linux has done pretty well under the GPLV2.
Linus, it seems, is smart enough to know that he is a terrific technician, project manager, what have you, and not an IP lawyer.
There are many licenses already out there that have been blessed by legal beagles and have stood the test of (some) time.
If someone with the right chops sees a need for something new, he or she is free to draft it, but spare me from pundocracy.
One word: Coffee.
OK, that's not enough. Not nearly.
Why is it that every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks they can craft a freakin' license? Even if they could, why do they think they need to?
So far as I can tell, Linux has done pretty well under the GPLV2.
Linus, it seems, is smart enough to know that he is a terrific technician, project manager, what have you, and not an IP lawyer.
There are many licenses already out there that have been blessed by legal beagles and have stood the test of (some) time.
If someone with the right chops sees a need for something new, he or she is free to draft it, but spare me from pundocracy.
That wasnt an open letter, that was an open admission of having no clue.
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Say what? Everything has political and social implications. Just not the ones that you like, perhaps.
GPL2 already does this, and so does GPL3. What GPL2 implied and GPL3 states expressly is the hardware cannot be locked to prevent running any modified source code. Seems pretty plain to me, and I am not even a lawyer.
You want the CDDL, then, which is a file-based license. The reasons against closed, proprietary, binary blobs are legion and well-documented. Linus himself does not like them, and has said plainly on more than one occasion that they are illegal. He tolerates them for the time being, no more.
So you would explicitly allow mingling with closed, proprietary blobs, but only protect the "idea" of giving back.
Only patent holders can grant patent rights, sheesh. And let's debunk this "pursuing an agenda" FUD- that's what people always say when they're pursuing different agendas.
There's a reason it's long and lawyerly- it's a legal document.
How does making it easier for commercial and proprietary interests to exploit FOSS code respect the freedoms of the programmers who write it? I think those are the people who matter the most, not the freeloaders who want to poach it. If coders want to release their code under terms that do not require giving back, there are BSD, LPGL, and many other licenses for that, and I'm pretty sure most FOSS programmers know this.