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Linus on the BK withdrawalLinus on the BK withdrawalPosted Apr 6, 2005 19:43 UTC (Wed) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523)In reply to: Linus on the BK withdrawal by hppnq Parent article: Linus on the BK withdrawal
>The only thing that Larry has been trying to prevent is (...) that people use *his* software to further their own efforts, through reverse engineering. I think he deserves better than our unfounded criticism.
Forbidding reverse-engineering and refusing commercial licenses to people based on their opinions is morally corrupt as far as I am concerned, and illegal in a lot of juridictions anyway.
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Linus on the BK withdrawal Posted Apr 6, 2005 20:15 UTC (Wed) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link] I don't think you understood what I meant to say: it's not that Larry doesn't deserve *any* criticism, just *unfounded* criticism. He's anything but stupid.Let's try to refrain from useless moralism and stick to the facts. There are many people who *try* every trick in the book, whether it's legally or morally just or not. It's obvious that Larry has tried very hard to prevent other people using his software for their own purposes. It's not up to me to deliver the verdict on whether this is right in whatever respect, IANAJ, IANAP. I would have liked things to develop in another way, but that is an entirely different matter. (You might find this an odd statement, but because I care quite passionately about freedom, I try to keep things *realistic* instead of academic. If you can only see black and white you're missing out on all the colours that make up the spectrum that is real life.)
Linus on the BK withdrawal Posted Apr 7, 2005 6:57 UTC (Thu) by jarto (guest, #3268) [Link] > Forbidding reverse-engineering and refusing commercial licenses to people based on their opinions is morally corrupt as far as I am concerned, and illegal in a lot of juridictions anyway.
Morally corrupt? Excuse me but how's the weather in the world you live in?
I understand Larry's point very well. Why should he help anyone in creating a competing product or reverse-engineering his?
Linus on the BK withdrawal Posted Apr 7, 2005 8:17 UTC (Thu) by gowen (guest, #23914) [Link] Why should he help anyone in creating a competing product or reverse-engineering his?No-one's suggesting he should help. But once he's made his opinion clear that he's not going to help, and that he'll be as obstructive as possible (no licenses sold to people working on SCM), he should stop pretending to be the good guy.
JFYI: "gowno" is "shit" in Russian Posted Apr 7, 2005 9:41 UTC (Thu) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link] > But once he's made his opinion clear that he's not going to help
Quote/link, please. Or STFU :-/
title removed because gvy is a silly child, who'd be better of at /. Posted Apr 7, 2005 13:11 UTC (Thu) by gowen (guest, #23914) [Link] Erm. OK. You want evidence that Larry won't help clone BK. He's only said it a million times, and written at least 3 license clauses precisely to that effect. How about this one :"It's pretty clear what you want to do and you keep asking for us to help you and the answer now, and forever, is no, we aren't going to help you create a copy of our product."As to "gowno" -- grow the hell up. It's not even the same letters as my log in.
Linus on the BK withdrawal Posted Apr 7, 2005 14:29 UTC (Thu) by jarto (guest, #3268) [Link] No-one's suggesting he should help. But once he's made his opinion clear that he's not going to help, and that he'll be as obstructive as possible (no licenses sold to people working on SCM), he should stop pretending to be the good guy.You're suggesting that the only way someone can be a good guy is by letting themselves be a**fu*ked. Look at it from his point of view:
1. You spend a lot of resources to create an excellent piece of software. Should you let those people you've helped for free walk all over you and jeopardize the future of your company?
Linus on the BK withdrawal Posted Apr 7, 2005 15:54 UTC (Thu) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] Should you let those people you've helped for free walk all over you and jeopardize the future of your company? No, you should not. You should do exactly what Larry has done. He has every right to change his business strategy in response to perceived threats. However, he should not be claiming that his company is the most open source friendly that anyone is ever going to see. That claim is absurd. Furthermore, he should not suggest that the open source communty has failed and must strive to be more like the marine corps. This merely demonstrates that he doesn't understand the principles that this community stands for in the first place. Personally I'm quite pleased that McVoy will be withdrawing the free client. As long as BitKeeper was free enough for Torvalds there was little actual need for a free software replacement. Once the kernel development team adopts Monotone or whatever they eventually choose that project will get an enormous amount of feedback and attention from smart people. I'm sure that after a few years of this the result will be as good or better than BitKeeper for free software development. Since McVoy will be now be focusing on proprietary software developers everybody wins.
Linus on the BK withdrawal Posted Apr 8, 2005 10:52 UTC (Fri) by gowen (guest, #23914) [Link] Yes, exactly what GreyWizard said
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