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To GPL 3 or not to GPL 3, that is the Linux question (Linux-Watch)
Linux-Watch
follows
ongoing discussions about GPLv3 and the Linux kernel.
"Linus Torvalds made it clear on January 25th in a message to the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), that as far as he was concerned, the Linux operating system is going to stay under General Public License 2 and not migrate to GPL 3. Discussion of the matter, however, has not come to an end.
Richard M. Stallman, primary author of the GPL and founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) isn't interested in fighting with Torvalds over the matter. "I don't want to have an argument with him about this," Stallman said."
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whats the debate? Posted Feb 2, 2006 18:52 UTC (Thu) by b7j0c (subscriber, #27559) [Link] it sounds like torvalds has his mind made up, none of the comments i see from him indicate he has changed his mind or is interested in alternate viewpoints.
whats the debate? Posted Feb 2, 2006 19:08 UTC (Thu) by mattdm (guest, #18) [Link] See http://lwn.net/Articles/169797/ for some good commentary on this.
whats the debate? Posted Feb 2, 2006 23:27 UTC (Thu) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link] The discussion NOW is on possible improvements to the GPLv3 draft text.There is no GPLv3 yet to apply to any software; so any discussion of GPL versions in relation to the Linux kernel is premature. Linus can spend his time better on merging and coding now.
whats the debate? Posted Feb 3, 2006 2:51 UTC (Fri) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] If a consensus is reached among the kernel contributors (Ha! Ha!) I would have to say that Linus would be a piss poor benevolent dictator if he did not respect the wishes of the people who have made the kernel what it is, despite his own personal feelings on the matter.
Linus does seem to be acting a bit out of character lately.
He's always managed to combine a sort of maddening silence on some issues with a sort of outspokenness on others that defies understanding.
But trolling Linux desktop mailing lists? Claiming that GPLv3 would force him to give his signing keys away? Sounds like the success of Linux might be going to his... well I won't finish that sentence.
While I have huge respect for Linus' technical abilities and his ability to architect system software, I must admit that I am thankful that we have Andrew Morton, Alan Cox, and others to counterbalance him. (Staid and solid, despite Alan's hairdo. ;-)
I guess that's the strength of open-source in a way.
whats the debate? Posted Feb 3, 2006 10:15 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] He's always managed to combine a sort of maddening silence on some issues with a sort of outspokenness on others that defies understanding.Yes. And he's doing exactly the same thing now. Wander round e.g. the GCC lists one of these days and have a look for some of Linus's posts there. Even before Linux existed he was known to some degree as someone who'd pop up on a list and quasi-troll it with things perhaps put more dogmatically than they need to be (which is fun to read, admittedly.) I think he uses a similar information acquisition technique to one I evolved back in the Usenet days, to wit: if you turn up on a newsgroup and politely ask a question, you might get one or two responses. Sometimes they will be accurate; sometimes they might come from people who know something about the topic. But if you want a good cross-section of responses from people who know a lot about the topic, you should post something probably wrong as dogmatically as possible. All the resident subject-matter demigods will then pop up and outdo themselves to prove you wrong. And you'll learn a lot more than you otherwise would. (This does have a cost: it requires a willingness to appear an idiot in front of thousands of people whom you may respect...)
whats the debate? Posted Feb 3, 2006 13:52 UTC (Fri) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] it requires a willingness to appear an idiot in front of thousands of people whom you may respect...http://lwn.net/Articles/105375/
whats the debate? Posted Feb 4, 2006 9:09 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] How very interesting.
I grasp what you are saying. I'm just not sure whether the technique described requires a degree of self-confindence, a degree of arrogance, or both. ;-)
Regardless, I do think you are onto something there.
whats the debate? Posted Feb 5, 2006 0:15 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] I don't think it needs either self-confidence or arrogance, as such. You just need to be a manipulative bastard and view interactions with other humans as an interesting opportunity for another sociological experiment. :)
whats the debate? Posted Feb 5, 2006 5:25 UTC (Sun) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] Dr. Vasilia, meet Dr. Fastolfe. Fastolfe, Vasilia. :-)
whats the debate? Posted Feb 16, 2006 22:41 UTC (Thu) by anton (guest, #25547) [Link] I think he uses a similar information acquisition technique to one I evolved back in the Usenet days, to wit: if you turn up on a newsgroup and politely ask a question, you might get one or two responses. Sometimes they will be accurate; sometimes they might come from people who know something about the topic. But if you want a good cross-section of responses from people who know a lot about the topic, you should post something probably wrong as dogmatically as possible. All the resident subject-matter demigods will then pop up and outdo themselves to prove you wrong.You may get a lot of answers, and you may believe that they are from demi-gods, but they will be mostly from newbies, with maybe a terminal case of flame-warrior thrown in (like what is happening in this comment:-). Everyone who has been in a few flamewars will ignore the thread and maybe put you in a kill-file. There are certainly ways to provoke the more knowledgable people to correct you, but certainly not with obvious flame-bait like you are advocating. The best way to get good answers is probably still to post smart questions. Then the knowledgeable people will tend to answer, and their answers will probably be accurate; and that's why there are only few of them: there's nothing to correct in these answers.
whats the debate? Posted Feb 19, 2006 8:18 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] What you say has some merit.
In practice this is a technique I tend to use half-accidentally: it works best if the probably-wrong stuff you post is stuff you thought was right when you posted it, if you see what I mean. :)
I don't see people killfiling me left and right (but of course the nature of killfiles is that it's very hard to tell...)
It's also a technique best used *rarely*. :)
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