2006 Linux and free software timeline: September [LWN.net]

Linus Torvalds never supported the Free Software movement. He sort of accidentally drifted into making a contribution to the Free Software community, but not because he ever supported our goals. And so he has actually said that he is against our aims of defending freedom for all users. What can you do?

-- Richard Stallman

Debian's Alioth server is compromised (announcement).

SanDisk MP3 players are seized at a trade show in Berlin as the result of a dispute over software patent royalties (BBC).

A proposed update to the Creative Commons licenses runs into trouble resulting from its anti-DRM provisions (article).

The "Citizendium" launches as a fork of Wikipedia; progress since then is slow.

The 2.6.18 kernel is released (announcement).

Finally, we recognise that defining what constitutes DRM abuse is essentially political in nature and as such, while we may argue forcefully for our political opinions, we may not suborn or coerce others to go along with them. Therefore, attempting to write these type of restrictions into GPLv3 and then relicense all FSF code under it is tantamount to co-opting the work of all prior contributions into the service of the FSF's political ends...

-- Several kernel developers

A poll of kernel developers reveals almost universal opposition to GPLv3 (results).

The Debian "Dunc-Tank" launches as an effort to raise money to pay Debian developers (announcement).

Freenode founder Rob Levin dies in a bicycling accident (notice).

The Linux-ready firmware developer kit launches; the work is sponsored by Intel (announcement).

Mozilla Corp. tells Debian to stop using the Firefox trademark; Debian responds by switching to Iceweasel (article).

Mandriva Linux 2007 is released (announcement).

Ultimately, we need to recognize that Linux is a 15-year-old kernel and that there will be another technical development to supersede it eventually. I can't say what that will be, but I think the best chance of mobilizing individual contribution to it would be to use GPL 3.

-- Bruce Perens

A court in Germany upholds the GPL against D-Link (announcement).

Eric Raymond joins the Freespire "Leadership Board," having found a distribution more to his liking (announcement).

The first draft of version 2 of the GNU Free Documentation License is released (announcement).

BusyBox maintainer Rob Landley quits as the result of a GPLv3 dispute in which Bruce Perens stated his intent to fork the project (article).

August

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October ==>

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