Freedoms granted by the GPLvX [LWN.net]

Freedoms granted by the GPLvX

Posted Oct 18, 2006 18:52 UTC (Wed) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
In reply to: Freedoms granted by the GPLvX by masuel
Parent article: FSF should separate GPLv3 changes (Linux.com)

> As LWN mentioned in an earlier article the previous position from
> Richard has been stated as: "...I'm not really concerned with what's
> running inside my microwave oven.", but that has now changed, as with the
> new conditions he clearly dose.

Oh, I doubt RMS' position on microwave ovens changed.

What changed is the FSF realised microwave oven business models were being extended to the computer space, and open computing devices couldn't be taken as a given anymore.

You may not realise FLOSS projects all over the world turn to the FSF for assistance whenever they have a legal problem (new law, "creative" GPL interpretation, etc), and as a result the FSF has a *much* more accurate view of legal trends and abuses than your average developper (exceptions being individuals like Harald Welte or Alan Cox who try to understand the legal landscape).

Would I trust RMS to write a successful OS kernel? No

But would I trust the people Linus herded in the Bitkeeper debacle on legal matters? God NO. The single most successful decision they did in the legal field was to use the GPL and let people who actually cared about legalities take care of them.

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