Written down somewhere...just not well known

Written down somewhere...just not well known

Posted Oct 24, 2002 10:03 UTC (Thu) by leandro (guest, #1460)
In reply to: Written down somewhere...just not well known by roelofs
Parent article: Proprietary kernel modules - the boundary shifts?

Thanks for the link, very informative.

I think these messages by Linus illustrate very clearly what I think is wrong about his instance on licensing and that taken by the FSF.

Linus accept all code sent him that he deems sane. He asks for no assignment, so now there are lots of authors holding copyrights on fundamental parts of Linux. He uses GNU GPL v2, and admits he might have to change if something catastrophic like the GNU GPL v2 being considered unenforceable happened. Unlikely as that is, it is a theoretical possibility, and to change licenses Linus would have to get agreement from all copyright holders. I don't know if he could even contact all of them today. This also severely complicates, and could even hinder, enforcement.

Moreover, any copyright holder can disagree over his interpretation on linking and sue people around. Theoretically, an author could sell his copyrighs on fundamental parts of Linux to some Big Corp and this big, proprietary software, freedom-hating Corp could cause havoc. Again unlikely, but theoretically possible.

Now contrast that to the FSF. It requires assignment, so that all GNU software is defensible by the FSF in court. It will try to enforce its copyrights as to its own interpretation of the GNU GPL, which besides being authoritative coming from the authors of the said license is published, clear and well-known. Changing the licensing to GNU GPL v3 or whatever then is as trivial as a new release, without the hassle of multiple copyright holders which also complicates enforcement.

Even the recommendations from the FSF for non-GNU, but still GPL'd software are saner. Licensing under GNU GPL v2 or later makes "licensing upgrade" trivial.

I understand Linus and other "OpenSourcers" get annoyed at FSF's emphasis on ethics, law and politics, but what I don't accept is their instance that equates to thinking and advocating that ignoring the problem will make it go away.

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