Thanks for making my argument [LWN.net]

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 0:20 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: Thanks for making my argument by airlied
Parent article: Canonical reveals plans to launch Mir display server (The H)

Great, so you dislike Canonical and badmouth them in public. That is exactly what I was trying to establish (and something that other commenters obtusely refuse to see). It is your choice, but expect no sympathy for your cause from those grateful for Ubuntu.

Do you apply the same criteria always? Because I am eagerly awaiting your criticisms of Google Android, Tizen and the GNU project, just to name three prominent examples that are run more or less behind closed doors. (GNU is more open but still requires contributors agreement; the others are worse because AFAIK they don't even accept external contributions.)

Me, I am grateful for what I get, and contribute back what little I can.

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Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 0:47 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I find strange that doings things behind closed doors would be more palatable (or at least less deserving of your ire) than posting public documents. But everyone is entitled to their own contradictions, aren't we?

As to the GNU project, I think they do a great and necessary job, but their contributor agreement (reasonable as it is) and their development policies (cathedralicious according to some) have been criticized before. They are certainly less agile than they might be, and probably unlike every other project where you have worked before. Hence the comparison.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 1:35 UTC (Thu) by airlied (subscriber, #9104) [Link]

Android development model gets lots of criticism from lots of people, in the embedded space and everywhere else. Look at the kernel merge fun ongoing for years.

I have given out about Android and their encouragement of closed source graphics stacks before, and I do quite often at conferences and anywhere else. I've bitched about HW designs like the raspberry pi and I believe the FSF encouragement of such designs is totally anti their real mission.

Again you say the GNU project, but really its not one big monolith, you seem to be unable to distinguish individual pieces moving in their own directions, GNU projects are not beholden to some GNU development overlord.

some of them are more agile than others, the GNU project is an umbrella framework. Contributors to GNU projects again come from many companies and all believe that GNU is a good steward of the copyrights. (even if they don't use it enough to beat GPL violators with).

The thing is I don't believe Canonical is a good steward for my copyrights or anyone elses, and I think contributing code as an equal to their projects is very difficult. I've gone from 0 to being an integral part of 3 major projects *before* I joined Red Hat, and have never felt my company affiliation mattered in any of them, and was never asked to assign copyrights in any of them. Why would I want to give Canonical rights to take my code proprietary when they don't give me the same right? If you want the right to take code proprietary license it under MIT, and give the same right to other contributors (ala the Mesa 3D stack and X.org), if you don't want it use a GPL variant like the kernel. I also disliked Qt for doing the same for years, and MySQL also ran like that. It discourages individuals and other companies from making any decent contributions to your codebase, so in general you lose a major benefit of being open-source in the first place.

Its generally okay to give copyrights to a foundation that is setup correctly, but to individual companies, my personal believe is it doesn't end well.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 8, 2013 14:29 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Sheesh. The GNU project was cathedralicious *sixteen years ago*. It's not any more.

Not a cathedral, not a bazaar

Posted Mar 8, 2013 15:05 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

You are right (and I should know since I have been a voluntary Savannah admin for a few years). When handling code it is still not as agile as other environments, but it is certainly not centralized. The decision process however remains largely in the hands of a couple of people, and there have been some complaints about it recently.

Let us see a practical example: inclusion in the project.The GNU project says about it:

Based on the evaluators' report, Richard Stallman (the Chief GNUisance) makes the final decision on whether to accept the contribution. [...] Thus, becoming a GNU maintainer is a somewhat formal process, since affiliating with the GNU project as a maintainer means you must agree to work (within the confines of the maintenance) with the GNU project's mission for software freedom.

Contrast with inclusion in other software collections:

Debian: have a Debian Developer sponsor your package.
CPAN: register, wait two weeks and upload your package.
The PyPI: register and upload.
NPM: npm publish.

The GNU project may not be a cathedral of software, but it is not exactly a bazaar just yet... and probably it never will given its goals.