Gentoo Linux founder to 'educate' Microsoft (News.com) [LWN.net]

Gentoo Linux founder to 'educate' Microsoft (News.com)

Posted Jun 16, 2005 16:34 UTC (Thu) by GeekBoi (guest, #24078) [Link] (3 responses)

I'm not so sure this is the best person to represent the Open Source
community to anyone.

http://www.zynot.org/info/fork.html

Now this all may be one disgruntled developer not happy with another, but
it does raise some question in my mind about this gentleman's fitness to
the purpose.

Gentoo Linux founder to 'educate' Microsoft (News.com)

Posted Jun 16, 2005 17:13 UTC (Thu) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] (2 responses)

A good look at the facts should reveal that most if not all of those
accusations were the result of a man mistaking his image in the mirror for
an assumed opponent. What I mean is that a close read of the facts --
even as presented on the zynot site itself, will demonstrate that the guy
making the accusations had nearly all the qualities he was accusing
the /other/ guy of having.

Ask yourself this. Daniel Robbins had a background in earlier Linux and
in FreeBSD, where he spent a few years and where he got the ideas for what
later became portage, borrowed from FreeBSD ports. He certainly had
enough background in free source and its various licenses to have a good
idea what he was doing, when he chose the policy of making the GPL the
license under which all Gentoo projects would sit. Does that sound like
the type of guy that's mainly interested in his own gain -- in taking it
private? Not to me it doesn't! Despite the accusations, there's little
or no evidence backing them up.

OTOH, take a look at the other guy and /his/ background, then take a look
at his stated plans for Zynot. He was forking Gentoo because the license
Daniel deliberately chose allowed him to do so. At the same time, he had
a whole list of criticisms based on his closed source background of how
open source was doing it wrong, and how Zynot would work so much better
with a top-down management directed environment. Anybody who's spent time
in the open source community should know how /that/ will go over with most
open source developers, and the community in general -- like a lead
balloon, which is about how Zynot ended up going over -- it never got much
of anywhere and was eventually dropped, despite being able to get a
jump-start from Gentoo's GPLed code. The guy basically had no feel for
the open source community and how it worked at all!

Contrast that with what happened to Gentoo since then. Yes, Daniel had
made some mistakes, but Gentoo was doing well before all this came up. It
had the potential of killing Gentoo but it didn't. In ordered to do the
best he could by Gentoo and prevent those personal accusations from
affecting Gentoo any more than necessary, DR did two things. First, he
completed the setup of the not-for-profit Gentoo Foundation as he'd always
promised, and handed over to it all his Trademark and copyright rights.
Second, after seeing that safely setup, he distanced himself from the
distribution he created, so the personal accusations still following him
to this day wouldn't affect Gentoo more than it already had.

You see, when I was considering switching to Gentoo, I checked all this
out (tho the NFP was still being setup and DR hadn't fully pulled out yet
because he couldn't until there was that legal entity to transfer his
claims to). As I said, it quickly became apparent what the /real/ story
was, from the guy making the accusations himself! Time has only proven
that to be the case.

....

Back on topic, I know not what Daniel Robbins is really doing at MS,
besides the headlines, but he's a pretty sharp dude, who has already paid
his dues to the FLOSS community. Whether or not MS (or part of it) has or
is changing, I'm convinced he believes it is or he wouldn't be there.
Ultimately, MS /must/ accept coexistence with open source and indeed
libreware as well, making its products available on the platform, or it
will be confined to a smaller and smaller portion of the market. What's
to say they (or at least some element of MS) hasn't realized that and the
recent noises about being friendly, while rather awkward and uncoordinated
so far, aren't the beginning of that realization. Whether or not they are
actually changing or are only faking, they've obviously convinced Daniel
Robbins, or I doubt he'd be there. I can only hope that he overpowers the
forces of the dark side, rather than them overpowering him, and he doesn't
get to mangled in the process. Time will tell, I guess.

Duncan

Gentoo Linux founder sells out

Posted Jun 17, 2005 5:22 UTC (Fri) by grouch (guest, #27289) [Link] (1 responses)

[ snipped out of context ]:
> Does that sound like the type of guy that's mainly interested in his own
> gain -- in taking it private?

D. Robbins current actions certainly seem to indicate that his interests are in money. Imagine the reaction to an announcement of Stallman or Torvalds or Volkerding taking a position at MS.

Gentoo Linux founder sells out

Posted Jun 20, 2005 6:38 UTC (Mon) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]

Personally, I think educating the worlds by far largest software company in Open Source is a good thing to do. I'd do it for free.

What MS then wants to do with that information is another question. But since we proclaim the gospel of openness, spreading information should always be a good thing, even "to the enemy".

One thing I genuinely respect about Microsoft

Posted Jun 16, 2005 16:39 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]

...is its agnostic view towards the source of ideas.
MS would be less of a company if they were 'too cool' to examine the zeitgeist and go to the source of the fresh ideas.
I wonder if the overall progress of F/OSS isn't frequently blunted by the need to come up with Yet Another Make Replacement, instead of investing more time in appreciating/learning the value of existing ideas.

Gentoo Linux founder to 'educate' Microsoft (News.com)

Posted Jun 16, 2005 17:31 UTC (Thu) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]

Well good luck Dan... and MS. (*grin* somehow)

Gentoo Linux founder to 'educate' Microsoft (News.com)

Posted Jun 16, 2005 18:24 UTC (Thu) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link] (3 responses)

IMHO No good can come of this. microsoft is only following the old playbook, "know your enemy", the better to destroy him.

I don't understand how anyone with more than 3 brain cells could look at microsoft's frantic efforts to destroy linux, even their recent attempts in europe to get samba outlawed, and think for a minute that they have any goal other than to find more effective methods of attacking us?

Gentoo Linux founder to 'educate' Microsoft (News.com)

Posted Jun 16, 2005 19:12 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] (2 responses)

>IMHO No good can come of this. microsoft is only following the old playbook, "know your enemy", the better to destroy him.
So, you foresee some 'nuclear option' whereby the F/OSS gains of the last 10 years can be magically erased?
My biggest fear is a GPLv3 that is so extremeist in its evangelical zeal that the market totally vomits on the idea. In other words, when technically beat across the board, Redmond's best hope against the FSF is ideological judo.

>I don't understand how anyone with more than 3 brain cells could look at microsoft's frantic efforts to destroy linux, even their recent attempts in europe to get samba outlawed, and think for a minute that they have any goal other than to find more effective methods of attacking us?
This is more realistic. But, again, I think it wiser to take a wait-and-see attitude towards it, lest jumping towards the first red flag be /exactly/ what they want you to do, grasspopper.

Gentoo Linux founder to 'educate' Microsoft (News.com)

Posted Jun 17, 2005 2:01 UTC (Fri) by Mithrandir (guest, #3031) [Link] (1 responses)

> So, you foresee some 'nuclear option' whereby the F/OSS gains of the last 10 years can be magically erased?

Can anyone say "software patents"?

> My biggest fear is a GPLv3 that is so extremeist in its evangelical zeal that the market totally vomits on the idea. In other words, when technically beat across the board, Redmond's best hope against the FSF is ideological judo.

I'm not sure that the kernel, at least, will switch to version 3. Seeing as Linus doesn't own the copyright on most of it, he can't unilaterally make the switch.

But seriously, considering the lengthy community consultation period the FSF keeps talking about, I don't beleive the GPL v3 will really be all that extreme. And Eben Moglen I'd trust with my life.

>>I don't understand how anyone with more than 3 brain cells could look at microsoft's frantic efforts to destroy linux, even their recent attempts in europe to get samba outlawed, and think for a minute that they have any goal other than to find more effective methods of attacking us?

Yeah, though it's conceivable that MS is big enough that one section is completely at odds with another on particular issues.

Gentoo Linux founder to 'educate' Microsoft (News.com)

Posted Jun 17, 2005 13:00 UTC (Fri) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]

>Can anyone say "software patents"?
At the point that the absurdity starts to threaten cashflow, someone will play the Qoheleth card ("There is nothing new under the sun") and bury the idiot in prior art.

>And Eben Moglen I'd trust with my life.
A strong endorsement. I like the GPL more from the 'sheer common sense' angle than the ethical angle, and I hope that the FSF doesn't become increasingly evangelical about it.

>Yeah, though it's conceivable that MS is big enough that one section is completely at odds with another on particular issues.
It's a fairly known fact that MS has a darwinian internal culture.

Gentoo Linux founder to 'educate' Microsoft (News.com)

Posted Jun 17, 2005 12:51 UTC (Fri) by thompsot (guest, #12368) [Link]

I hope DR has been thouroughly trained in the discipline of standing up under extreme manipulation...

Steve Ballmer: "Here's some more money... tell us what we need to know to further our efforts in destro... I mean, WORKING WITH our latest enem... I mean, FRIEND in the industry".

One would hope DR is just taking them for a ride for a while, gathering some easy income while MS thinks it's offer is actually buying it something worthwhile.