Russ Nelson proposes new license requirements

Posted Mar 3, 2005 6:45 UTC (Thu) by LinuxLobbyist (guest, #6541) [Link]

rule #1 is: never say anything which sounds bad taken out of context

Of course -- and maybe your implying this -- that's quite an impossibility. The witch-hunters, as we've seen from those who don't seem to want to sign their real names in this thread, will twist and contort what you say to smear you. If you write "I never said, 'I hate green people'" the anonymous witch-hunters will quote the 'I hate green people' portion.

IMNSHO, if you are confident in you're views, the best approach is unapologetic transparency. Let what you say speak for itself and those with not-so-twisted senses of decency will seek out what you've written including any subsequent commentary you make to clarify what you wrote instead of picking out what they perceive as offensive, even though they know darn well they are smearing someone to a) silence opposing viewpoints or b) impose their politically correct language on the unsuspecting.

Though Bruce makes some good points, I beg to differ that this would have made much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. If ESR's non-FOSS rants really harmed 'us', I'm straining to see just how. It's his FOSS views that concerned me, and we'll never really know where we'd be if it wasn't for ESR, or for the OSI, for that matter. CatB was his most significant contribution. The rest...well, eh, who can say.

Personally, Russ, I didn't like a lot of what I saw you post on slashdot about the FSF and I respectfully (though vehemently) disagree. And that is why I think you didn't belong at head of the OSI. Using freshmeat.net, take a look at the percentages of projects using the GPL or the LGPL and note where they rank. That says a lot about what people think of the licenses that the FSF has contributed and should command our respect. Given the numbers for the MPL and the QPL, I'd say they were near complete failures in terms of acceptance. I suspect the CDDL is going to fare even worse. Your final act as president (adding three more conditions for new licenses) was probably the best thing anyone could have done.

But I must give credit where credit is due. It takes guts to come here and participate in a discussion where some disingenious folks are calling you a racist. Know that you are in good company. If you like David Horowitz, that is. But there are many more victims of this witch-hunt. You're right. Being called a racist hurts. It's toxic. Especially if you know in your heart that you are quite the opposite.

-Paul Iadonisi
 Senior System Administrator
 Red Hat Certified Engineer / Local Linux Lobbyist
 Ever see a penguin fly?  --  Try Linux.
 GPL all the way: Sell services, don't lease secrets