The kernel and BitKeeper part ways [LWN.net]

The kernel and BitKeeper part ways

Posted Apr 14, 2005 11:49 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525)
In reply to: The kernel and BitKeeper part ways by Xman
Parent article: The kernel and BitKeeper part ways

I did suggest that accepting a license in bad faith is fraud, and I guess that's where you got the immoral and illegal from.

On the other hand, making a license which contains stuff that's not enforcible, is also immoral and illegal. That's why contracts that contain such stuff are not enforcible, and any good contract contains a clause that makes the contract valid even though (removing the "bad apples" in the contract).

Further note that when you get a legal copy of a software without contract/license, you still can legally use, reverse engineer, patch, and resell that software (given that you don't keep a copy - that's basic copyright stuff). If you obtain the software from the copyright holder, it is a "legal copy". That's why any EULA or other license absolutely should contain the phrase that no matter what rubbish there's written in it, the valid clauses still stay valid, because otherwise, the customer has a much better position.

In the end, I'm very happy that this BitKeeper stuff happend as it did. I didn't understand why Linus didn't use any source management at all for a long time (even though in the beginning, CVS would have been completely sufficient), and any free tool he had used long enough would have scaled into what he needs now. Now, we've just 10 years lost (for the first 5 years of Linux), and have to play fast catch-up. The result will probably be two or three free distributed source repository systems which are all capable to do more than we ordinary users ever want. And no one ever again will depend important free software work on a non-free software.

Note: I usually tell people about contract clauses I'm going to ignore (if there's a general "ignore the rubbish" clause), or that signing the contract is a waste of time (when there's not). In the latter case, my response to such a contract will be rather rude.

(Log in to post comments)