Agreed: Time for the GNU/Hurd

Posted Sep 24, 2006 16:53 UTC (Sun) by charris (guest, #13263)
In reply to: Agreed: Time for the GNU/Hurd by accname
Parent article: Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

I find it odd that so much of the argument in favor of the GPLv3 goes along the following lines:

1) The developers are narrow techies with no political sophistication. In short, they are too stupid to know what they are doing.

2) The developers are just passing on corporate propaganda. In short, they are too stupid to have their own thoughts.

3) The developers are bought and paid for by corporations. In short, they are evil minions because corporations are evil entities.

4) The developers were once progressive, but sold out for money. In short, they are selfish and immoral.

Note that none of these arguments deal with the license itself, they are all ad hominem attacks on the developers. Folks, this sort of crap may pass muster in a political forum, but it is out of place in a technical discussion.

to post comments

That's just not the case

Posted Sep 25, 2006 0:24 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

I've seen very few such comments.

There were some (very valid) comments like that at the start when Linus shocked us with his statement (to a popular business magazine) that GPLv3 would not let him use GnuPG to encrypt his diary.

But Linus' comment have been getting more and more specific. Draft 2 responded to some of his DRM comments (although not to his satisfaction, as he said to the mainstream media within an hour of Draft 2's release). Sometimes it's still hard to understand the point of some criticisms, especially when the criticisms are made to the press instead of on the gplv3.fsf.org forum which would attach the comment to an actuall word/sentence/section of the licence.

But the quality of criticism is increasing, so they should be easier to address.