Distressing helpings of FUD

Distressing helpings of FUD

Quite the cage-rattling. It's sad to see ESR losing his grip to this extent. From the first answer (``People who do what the GPL tries to prevent (e.g., closed source forks of open source projects) wind up injuring only themselves. ''), ESR speaks as if there is 0.0% difference between ``open source'' and Free Software. The preceding argument is false, if you believe freedom is the requirement. Anyone creating such a non-Free fork is locking users into whatever mods the forkers made to it. Further, he spreads, quite freely, the ``GPL is viral'' canard.

To respond specifically to few items:

Some time ago there was a monetary offer to get a Linux snapshot under BSD license. Would you have accepted? I wouldn't have had the right to accept Jeff Merkey's offer; I'm not Linus.

Is it certain that Linus will adopt GPL v3? It depends. I know for a fact that he is concerned that GPL 3.0 will overreach.

The GPL includes a clause that automatically shifts the license terms to any new version of the license itself. Isn't this a Trojan horse? No, because the clause says ``at your option.'' That is, the person receiving GPL v2 software gets to choose whether v2 or the later version applies.

[....]

The user chooses only for copies of the software still under GPL 2.

A total misunderstanding of how changing terms to a later license can happen. Linus didn't (and doesn't) have any more right to accept Merkey's money than ESR. Linux isn't his work to dispose of as he sees fit. It just as impossible for Linus to convert the kernel to GPL v.3. because many chunks are licensed under v.2 only.

It's the licensor's decision to add ``or, at your option, any later version''; that's not in the GPL itself. If it's under GPL v.2 without that clause, the user cannot upgrade the license. That's going to burn the kernel badly if there turn out to be compelling reasons to move to v.3. It requires finding all the contributors and getting their permissions. I strongly suspect that for chunks of it, it's not even known who the contributor is, much less whether they've moved to Tibet for the life of contemplation, leaving no forwarding address, to say nothing about those (we hope, few) who've died. Tough to get permission.

I suspected that allegiance to the GPL is actually evidence that open source developers don't really believe their own story. That is, if we really believe that open source is a superior system of production, and therefore that it will drive out closed source in a free market, then why do we think we need infectious licensing?

Q: It seems that Red Hat is selling its GNU/Linux distribution under a sort of user license that limits the freedom No. 2 provided by the GPL. The short version of the story, as I was told, is that if I buy a CD/DVD with the last Red Hat version and I make an ISO from that and put that online, I'll get sued. [....]

[I]f you republish a RHEL CD in either form, you could get sued for illegal use of the embedded trademark. [....] As I understand it now, what Red Hat has done is legally blocked republication of its entire RHEL distribution even though any component part is still GPLed and therefore freely redistributable.

[....]

What you can't ``share'' is Red Hat's integration work and branding.

Actually, what you can't share is Red Hat's branding: if Red Hat wants to keep their trademark, such a restriction is required. To redistribute the ISO, all you need do is grep `Red Hat' and globally replace it with `Foonly '. Burn that, there's no problem, and you've got RH's integration . (If there's nothing but Free (not necessarily copylefted) software on the image.)

While in the middle portion of the interview he speaks cogently to the relationship between freedom and innovation, and the importance of keeping your data out of proprietary traps, the rest is very unsettling. I hope he's just suffering a concussion from which he'll recover soon. I'd hate to think he's gone over to the Dark Side.