GPL 3: An Open-Source Earthquake? (CRN) [LWN.net]

GPL 3: An Open-Source Earthquake? (CRN)

Posted Jan 26, 2007 17:25 UTC (Fri) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767)
In reply to: GPL 3: An Open-Source Earthquake? (CRN) by landley
Parent article: GPL 3: An Open-Source Earthquake? (CRN)

Rob,

Thanks for expending the effort to maintain busybox. Your contributions are greatly appreciated. Most of your users do not even know your name. Some of us do.

My ranting is not paranoid. At least, I hope it's not! ;-) I have no problem with our agreeing to disagree.

I'm worried about the motivations of some of our OSS luminaries. If that is paranoid then so be it.

Fourteen years ago, I was naive enough to think that the Internet was going to give us all the ability to communicate with each other and make the world a wonderful place for everyone.

I didn't even consider the possibility of spam, an Internet bubble, etc.

I'm a little more suspicious than I was back in those days.

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GPL 3: An Open-Source Earthquake? (CRN)

Posted Jan 29, 2007 17:05 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Fourteen years ago, I was naive enough to think that the Internet was going to give us all the ability to communicate with each other and make the world a wonderful place for everyone.

Lots of people wished that. In earlier times, people thought that the balloon, dynamite, the tank, nuclear weapons and even the telephone and radio would 'naturally end war' because everyone could communicate so of course they'd all agree.

It seems to be easy for techies to forget that people have differing goals (since we're all such nice people, doncha know), and that some people have goals such as 'maximize my personal power base' that contradict everyone else's.

GPL 3: An Open-Source Earthquake? (CRN)

Posted Jan 30, 2007 17:48 UTC (Tue) by rgoates (guest, #3280) [Link]

Nix, well put. I can often sympathize with those who indulge in utopian thinking. I wish some of those utopias were practical. But naivete regarding human nature is troubling; worse, it can be dangerous.