| Weekly edition | Kernel | Security | Distributions | Search |
| Archives | Calendar | Subscribe | Write for LWN | LWN.net FAQ |
The Problem With Dan Lyons' Article
The Problem With Dan Lyons' Article
Posted Sep 4, 2006 8:56 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252)In reply to: The Problem With Dan Lyons' Article by warmcat1
Parent article: The New Barbarians (Forbes)
Maybe the best plan is for RMS to send out GPL3 exactly how he likes it and see if he gets any takers over a longer time horizon, that is how the GPL2 came in common use after all.
GPLv2 "came in common use" because FSF licensed huge body of code under GPLv2: bash (and readline!), binutils, coreutils(it was few separate packages back then), emacs, gcc, etc. Today we have a lot of things licensed "under GPLv2 only" (Linux kernel, Qt, etc) so it's not easy to see if/when users will switch to GPLv3...
(Log in to post comments)
The Problem With Dan Lyons' Article
Posted Sep 4, 2006 15:28 UTC (Mon) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]
"" Today we have a lot of things licensed "under GPLv2 only" (Linux kernel, Qt, etc) so it's not easy to see if/when users will switch to GPLv3... ""
Users, i mean general users, couldnt care less !. Most people just want things to work and dont care how they work or why they can have trouble. The rational of the inherent complexity of IT solutions is something most users will discard to the responsability a 3th party... or under the rug! They(general users) simply dont read licenses and dont care in a dumb hyperpragmatic attitude. Ok, professional data centers do care, but there is a huge gap between them and the massive general approach, making "easyer" but inferior technical solutions so powerful!..
It is this gap that "Open source" as a *software engineers movement*, has to cross to get to the masses. It could be hard considering the "Open Source" circumstances, but when engineers start to address "users" as general, and not as someone in a familiar zone, they will be positioned to lead with strategic concerted efforts... otherwise it will continue to be so easy to FUD them and their propositions.
The Problem With Dan Lyons' Article
Posted Sep 4, 2006 19:07 UTC (Mon) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]
Users, i mean general users, couldnt care less !. Most people just want things to work and dont care how they work or why they can have trouble. The rational of the inherent complexity of IT solutions is something most users will discard to the responsability a 3th party... or under the rug! They(general users) simply dont read licenses and dont care in a dumb hyperpragmatic attitude. Ok, professional data centers do care, but there is a huge gap between them and the massive general approach, making "easyer" but inferior technical solutions so powerful!..
Right. But things can't just work when the organizations providing such software are sued left and right for licence or patent violations. The 3rd party has to be able to survive.
True, current laws are creating a complete mess, and show that they were created for the printing press technology. But it will take a few decades (at the very least) for open source and similar ideas elsewhere to become powerful enough to dictate their replacements.
It is this gap that "Open source" as a *software engineers movement*, has to cross to get to the masses. It could be hard considering the "Open Source" circumstances, but when engineers start to address "users" as general, and not as someone in a familiar zone, they will be positioned to lead with strategic concerted efforts... otherwise it will continue to be so easy to FUD them and their propositions.
This is no engineering problem, it is a legal gap to be crossed. Just look at the current crop of anti-OSS FUD.