Very ill-thought-out position

Posted Sep 23, 2006 14:53 UTC (Sat) by timtas (guest, #2815)
In reply to: Very ill-thought-out position by neilbrown
Parent article: Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

> We had hoped that the poll results and position paper would start
> discussion of the relative merits of the GPLv3 draft in the context
> of the Linux Kernel, not that it would cause flames and
> claims of FUD.

So why then do they spread FUD ? They certainly do.

I don't think the kernel should move to GPLv3, no project should. But all I read in this position on the GPLv3 draft is about ecosystem provided by kind distributors and nice companies owning substancial software patent portfolios upon which we rely and shouldn't get angry.

I would have no problem if this postion was signed by representatives of Novell, Red Hat and IBM, but it quite strange to get this from "the kernel developers", completely speaking for themselves and not in the least for their companies that pay their wages.

Everybody has to make a living, but you should at least be honest about it.

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Very ill-thought-out position

Posted Sep 24, 2006 6:07 UTC (Sun) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]

So why then do they spread FUD ? They certainly do

I don't claim to speak for the people who wrote the letter, but if they are speading FUD, then maybe it is because:

They have a real fear that this new license will be rejected by many and - as it is incompatible with GPLv2 - this will cause a balkanisation in the FLOSS arena with many GPLv2 vs GPLv3 forks. This is seriously possible and would not be a good thing.
They are profoundly uncertain that the value added by this license is worth the cost of the destabilisation it could cause, and because
They truely doubt that the "no technical measures" provisions will only stop unwanted measures but may also stop truely valuable technical measures (yes, there probably are some).

It is OK to spead FUD when you genuinely feel fear, uncertainty and doubt yourself.

Very ill-thought-out position

Posted Sep 24, 2006 14:13 UTC (Sun) by cyd (guest, #4153) [Link]

> I would have no problem if this postion was signed by representatives of
> Novell, Red Hat and IBM, but it quite strange to get this from "the kernel
> developers", completely speaking for themselves and not in the least for
> their companies that pay their wages.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair