Quotes of the week [LWN.net]

I reserve the right some day to attempt to sue the ass of people who tivo-ise my code. Hey I might lose but I reserve the right to.

-- Alan Cox

The Mexicans have the Chupacabra. We have Al Viro. If you hear him roar, just _pray_ he's about to dissect somebody elses code than yours.. There is no point in running.

-- Linus Torvalds

Seems that the entire kernel effort is an ongoing plot to make my poor little Vaio stop working.

-- Andrew Morton

to post comments

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 5, 2006 1:22 UTC (Thu) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (16 responses)

It's nice to see Alan is actually criticizing GPLv3 in constructive matter. GPLv3 can actually improve as a result.

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 5, 2006 13:52 UTC (Thu) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link] (3 responses)

Hey dude - timeout, huh? I think you need to step away from the console and take a walk or go for a swim or something. Yes, this is an important issue but (and I hate to point out the bleedin obvious) these three comments are meant as light relief. Let's leave it that way - you're doing your cause no favours.

please, Anthony

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 5, 2006 18:59 UTC (Thu) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

"""Let's leave it that way - you're doing your cause no favours."""

By saying that constructive criticism is a good thing? I must say, you have a strange way of interpreting his post.

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 5, 2006 20:44 UTC (Thu) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (1 responses)

Try clicking on "Alan Cox". There is something beyond "light relief" hiding here :)

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 6, 2006 12:09 UTC (Fri) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link]

done - thank you. i always forget that LWN helpfully provide a link to the message (mainly because those keerazy guys think underlining hyperlinks is sooooo yesterday, though in fairness everything _blue_ seems to be clickable.) anyway, yes - you could be right, the rest of the comment is serious and thoughtful and Alan does seem to be pro GPLv3 and he is working for RedHat so... I guess RedHat's on board (a leap I know but...). i should have known from your previous postings elsewhere that you had probably made a fair comment here so if I caused offence, sorry, none was meant, I'm just a bit sick of LWN being used as a boxing-ring is all.

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 5, 2006 16:48 UTC (Thu) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] (11 responses)

If I have not completely misunderstood things:

Alan is not here critizising the GPLv3
Also in the past Alan has been one of the few kernel developers in favor of gplv3, to the extent that he tried to convince Linus that Linus actually had included the "any later version" text and that it was just Linus who remembered wrong.

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 5, 2006 18:56 UTC (Thu) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] (10 responses)

No. He feels that "GPLv3 is much worse than GPLv2":

http://lwn.net/Articles/200423/

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 5, 2006 19:45 UTC (Thu) by gmaxwell (guest, #30048) [Link] (7 responses)

It is both funny and sad that you'll ignore the Alan's informative words (click on his name to see them in context) and instead base your view on some silly number on a sheet... It is a clear demonstration of which such polling should be avoided.

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 6, 2006 17:44 UTC (Fri) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] (6 responses)

I have already "clicked his name" and read his informative words, thank you very much. I did that before my previous post.

Alan highlights some of the problems that he sees with GPLv3. Like vagueness. This thing is going to have to stand up in court, after all.

None of these problem will get fixed, because RMS is still trying to live off of his GPLv2 home run, and is now highly overconfident. The GPLv3 will be what Richard wants it to be. No outside opinions matter to any significant degree.

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 6, 2006 18:50 UTC (Fri) by alexbk (subscriber, #37839) [Link] (5 responses)

Uh, this is an obvious troll, but...
Link
"My personal favorite was probably the presentation of Dietmar Tallroth of Nokia. He had just come back from a face to face meeting in the GPLv3 process to discuss in particular the clauses on Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), that have recently made the headlines when some Linux kernel developers took public position against it.

According to Mr Tallroth, the potential issues with DRM were clarified sufficiently for Nokia. He expressed understanding and acceptance of the position taken by FSF, and provided that the result of the recent discussions is present in the next draft, there are only a few more points to clarify in the software patent language, for which he was generally optimistic.

Indeed, Mr Tallroth was very explicit on how he found the Free Software Foundation very reasonable, pragmatic and indeed considerate of input into GPLv3 -- which he said contradicted the image that some people were having. So his conclusion was that unless there were major surprises, Nokia will be going with GPLv3.

It would be an odd item in the history of Free Software if major companies like Nokia have end up having no problems with GPLv3, but the Linux kernel refuses to use it for what is a percieved lack of friendliness with the commercial world."

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 7, 2006 1:07 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] (4 responses)

Call it a troll if you like. But I will point out that your example simply demonstrates Richard and the FSF refusing to give and inch. It would have been more convincing to post an example of them recognizing a problem with the license and agreeing to change it. I still maintain that the "Year Of Debate" is mainly for show; The GPLv3 draft is essentially the same now as it was in January of this year.

At any rate, http://lwn.net/Articles/201679/ , the first story from the front page of this very issue of LWN, states the real problem more eloquently than I can in this short post.

GPLv3 will further divide our community, unnecessarily. The real damage will begin when the GPLv3 draft goes, in its present form, from being a draft to being a real license.

If you want to call this an obvious troll, I don't really mind, because history will prove me right.

I do, very much, mind the consequenses of history proving me right.

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 7, 2006 21:05 UTC (Sat) by alexbk (subscriber, #37839) [Link] (3 responses)

As of now, the only significant group that has come out against GPLv3 are the core kernel
developers. I don't think that is enough evidence for the divide scenario. All the other Open Source
projects are either silent or supportive. Some of them work directly with FSF on the license -
http://gplv3.fsf.org/discussion-committees/A/committee-A-...

"History will prove me right" is a weak argument. I have no idea who you are, and, if anything, I see
that so far history has consistently proven Richard Stallman right. But if you want, we can return to
this one year from now, Oct 7 2007.

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 7, 2006 21:36 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

"""But if you want, we can return to
this one year from now, Oct 7 2007."""

Alex,

I'm agreeable to that.

I sincerely hope that *you* are right and that I am wrong. I mean that.

Linus was wrong when he focused too much on pragmatism during the BitKeeper afair, and ignored his dev team's philosophical leanings.

I fear that Richard is about to make the same mistake with regards to today's FOSS developer community.

By the way, I hope that you don't really think that I am trolling. LWN is a site of impressive quality. I would not consider dirtying it in any way. It would not be right to do so.

-Steve

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 11, 2006 18:50 UTC (Wed) by mingo (subscriber, #31122) [Link] (1 responses)

As of now, the only significant group that has come out against GPLv3 are the core kernel developers.

Which is not surprising, as DRM/hardware restrictions primarily affect the domain of the kernel.

But watch the fireworks once the GPLv4 tries to limit the distribution of non-GPL-compatible licensed applications in Linux distributions...

Right now the only thing allowing us that is the spirit of the GPLv2. But once the GPLv3 is out, that spirit of fairness is gone.

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 12, 2006 11:08 UTC (Thu) by alexbk (subscriber, #37839) [Link]

The spirit of the GPL is protecting the four freedoms that you're given when you use GPLd software. The FSF would have to justify any GPLv4 changes by explaining how the changes are necessary for the freedoms. I don't see how your example can be justified that way. Anything else that comes up in GPLv4 we'll discuss when it does come up.

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 7, 2006 13:40 UTC (Sat) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] (1 responses)

Ok, so I was making a bad guess based on old information. Sorry for confusing any innocent readers but also thanks for keeping me updated.

Alan Cox and GPLv3

Posted Oct 7, 2006 15:52 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

One suspects that Alan's position on the matter is complex, as is the personality behind it.

Quotes of the week

Posted Oct 9, 2006 20:19 UTC (Mon) by daniel (guest, #3181) [Link]

The Mexicans have the Chupacabra. We have Al Viro. If you hear him roar, just _pray_ he's about to dissect somebody elses code than yours.. There is no point in running.

...or for some folks, there is no point in continuing to contribute when faced with antisocial geek bully behavior. Please don't glorify it, it is not a thing to be proud of.

For a better role model, consider the way Hugh Dickens politely dissects VM patches without driving anybody away, quite the contrary.