Quotes of the week

[Posted March 28, 2007 by corbet]

Anyway, if it doesn't fix a bug it is nowhere near a high-priority patch for that seething bugfest which we like to call a kernel, so I'll drop it.

-- Andrew Morton

In [the] future, I'd recommend adding a witty comment to any such trivial patch: it's really the only way to get it featured on LWN's Kernel Quote of the Week.

-- Rusty Russell

In talking with a lot of different companies recently, I've come to the realization that we really need to do something about companies that violate the kernel's GPLv2 license. It has been a common criticism that "Well, our company abides by the GPL by releasing the code properly for our kernel modules, but what about all of those other companies that do not?" The companies that are good members of the community are getting a lot of pressure by people internal to them to stop releasing the code. This is justified by pointing to the companies that do not release their code as they are not having any "penalties" by doing this.

-- Greg Kroah-Hartman.

Quotes of the week

Posted Mar 29, 2007 1:49 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (10 responses)

> "...we really need to do something about companies that violate the kernel's GPLv2 license." -- Greg KH

What about public humiliation? Post infractions on kernel.org/violators, remove them when the companies return to compliance. Maybe commission a small mailing list to maintain that page?

I'd volunteer. It's a worthy cause.

Quotes of the week

Posted Mar 29, 2007 2:45 UTC (Thu) by timschmidt (guest, #38269) [Link]

Seconded. At the very least, a good first step.

Quotes of the week

Posted Mar 29, 2007 3:20 UTC (Thu) by JohnNilsson (guest, #41242) [Link]

Create a whole community project around it. That is keep a public record of everything regarding the cases like mail exchanges, compliance issues and so forth. If private pressure fails, publish the communication and begin public pressure keeping a record of whats being said and done on either side, if that fails continue to litigation.

Private pressure -> Compliance
       |
       V
 Public pressure -> Compliance
       |
       V
   Litigation    -> Compliance

Quotes of the week

Posted Mar 29, 2007 6:17 UTC (Thu) by bangert (subscriber, #28342) [Link]

Harald Welte has been doing exactly that for some time now:
http://www.gpl-violations.org

Quotes of the week

Posted Mar 29, 2007 17:00 UTC (Thu) by Zenith (guest, #24899) [Link]

Greg has also posted about this on his blog, going into further details about how one could handle this mess.

Quotes of the week

Posted Mar 29, 2007 23:47 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] (1 responses)

You mean like the BusyBox "hall of shame"?

http://busybox.net/shame.html

Which was up for something like 5 years and DIDN'T WORK? Which is why we
asked the Software Freedom Law Center to actually sue people on our
behalf? (Which they do for free. Quite nice of them.)

Quotes of the week

Posted Apr 2, 2007 9:09 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Yeah. It sort of makes sense that it doesn't work: if people don't care about the license of your software, it's unlikely that they'll care about you complaining about it either; and if they don't even realise what the license is, they probably hardly ever (or ever at all) look at the website anyway (I'd not be surprised if some of these embedded vendors grabbed a copy of busybox / uclibc years ago and never refreshed it; stability matters to these guys, after all).

It was a nice idea, but I can't see how it could work, even though I wish it did.

Quotes of the week

Posted Mar 30, 2007 7:24 UTC (Fri) by grouch (guest, #27289) [Link] (3 responses)

It would be handy to have such a list in one place.

There is another penalty on those companies -- they miss out on some sales. I have a stack of nVidia cards, purchased in ignorance long ago, which is gathering dust. The replacements have all used free drivers. Before I go to buy a device, I check to see if there is free (libre) code to support it. If the developers are complaining about the vendor fighting their efforts, that vendor is off the list. Manufacturers cannot compete for my money unless they assist the coders who generously share their work with us all.

Don't bite the hand that frees you. :)

Quotes of the week

Posted Mar 30, 2007 19:08 UTC (Fri) by dirtyepic (guest, #30178) [Link] (2 responses)

one grain of sand in a sandstorm man.

Quotes of the week

Posted Mar 30, 2007 20:35 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (1 responses)

No single raindrop thinks it's responsible for the flood.

Quotes of the week

Posted Apr 4, 2007 4:06 UTC (Wed) by roelofs (guest, #2599) [Link]

The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.

(Sorry, had a Kosh moment there. :-) )

Greg

Quotes of the week

Posted Mar 29, 2007 15:11 UTC (Thu) by vmole (guest, #111) [Link]

Our esteemed editor left out the best part of Rusty's quote:

Damn you Jon for turning us all into show ponies! (*Hi mum!*)