A tempest in a toybox [LWN.net]

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 1, 2012 18:02 UTC (Wed) by deater (subscriber, #11746)
Parent article: A tempest in a toybox

I find it shocking how many people are willing to make demands about what kind of projects people should be allowed to work on, or what kind of license they should use. Especially as the end argument seems to be "don't work on that new project, as it will reduce our ability to sue people". This has what Free Software has become?

I wonder what the reactions would be if some $BIGCOMPANY made demands that other companies found infringing its product $X had to stop using all open-source software and submit all future products to be audited for compliance.

I have written a lot of GPLv2 code over the years, but this whole situation has seriously made me reconsider my license choices.

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A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 1, 2012 20:09 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (1 responses)

If the new project solely is started to get around the license of the new project, why not?

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 9, 2012 20:15 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link]

And if it was instead started by an ex-maintainer of busybox who was so disgusted with a troll he couldn't stand to work on that project anymore and started over from scratch to ensure said troll could never take credit for any of his work ever again? And documented this extensively?

http://landley.net/notes-2006.html#18-09-2006

If it was started by the guy who set off the busybox license enforcement actions in the first place? March 27, 2006 entry from here:

http://busybox.net/oldnews.html

If the project was GPLv2 for the first few years and switched for reasons again publicly explained?

http://landley.net/notes-2011.html#13-11-2011

By the way, your position says that making FreeDOS or ReactOS are evil acts.

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 1, 2012 23:56 UTC (Wed) by geertj (guest, #4116) [Link] (4 responses)

I fully agree. It seems that the once peaceful open source community has become invaded with angry individuals. A few years back i switched to the MIT license for most of my projects, and it will stay that way.

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 2, 2012 13:06 UTC (Thu) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link] (3 responses)

So you like the GPL as long as it's not enforced then?

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 2, 2012 15:38 UTC (Thu) by deater (subscriber, #11746) [Link] (1 responses)

Define enforced.

If GPL software is being shipped without source, I want that fixed.

I don't think the fix should involve all kinds of crazy strings attached.

Yes, it would be nice if the kernel GPL violations are fixed too. That's really unrelated to the busybox GPL enforcement. I mean, it would be nice if the infringing company would give all Linux developers candy and ponies too, but it seems like a silly demand to make.

If the Linux kernel developers want to enforce their GPL, let them. I don't see why it's the busybox lawyer's business at all though.

I'm saying this as someone who has a (very small) amount of GPL'd code in the linux-kernel tree.

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 3, 2012 11:24 UTC (Fri) by dwmw2 (subscriber, #2063) [Link]

Seriously?

When they contact a router manufacturer who is shipping a Linux-based device without any source code at all, and they come to an out-of-court settlement… you'd rather they only made sure the offending company publishes their Busybox source code, and nothing else?

You don't want them asking the company to comply with the law for all software they use in that specific product?

For my part, I disagree strongly with you. I am grateful that they have been asking these companies to stop violating my copyright too.

I just don't understand your point of view at all. See the example I gave elsewhere about beating my children.

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 9, 2012 20:19 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link]

I didn't leave the GPL, the GPL left me.

http://landley.net/notes-2006.html#03-12-2006

The FSF couldn't make me write GPLv3 code, but they _could_ make me stop writing GPLv2 code. And I'm not alone:

http://developers.slashdot.org/story/11/12/17/1735253/gpl...

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 2, 2012 0:32 UTC (Thu) by mitchskin (subscriber, #32405) [Link] (3 responses)

That's just a strawman. No one is talking about "what kind of projects people should be allowed to work on, or what kind of license they should use".

It's just that *if* you agree with the GPL enforcement work, then we should work together to find ways to continue it even if there's a permissive replacement for busybox. It's not an attempt to control projects or licenses, it's an attempt to coordinate with other like-minded people.

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 2, 2012 15:48 UTC (Thu) by deater (subscriber, #11746) [Link] (2 responses)

> No one is talking about "what kind of projects people should be
> allowed to work on, or what kind of license they should use".

Sure they are, I'm pretty sure that's Garrett's whole point.
See the thread here: http://lwn.net/Articles/478257/ .
He personally frowns upon the new project and its license, and is
discouraging anyone from helping.

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 2, 2012 16:40 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't object to the project or its license. I object to the motivation of certain people involved with it.

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 9, 2012 20:50 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link]

I really must thank you for the Streisand Effect publicity: more developers have signed up to the toybox mailing list in the past 2 weeks than in the previous 2 years. I labored on this thing in complete obscurity in 2006-2010 (under GPLv2, no less) for 377 repository commits. Now I've merged three new externally submitted commands in the past week, all from new developers who found out about it from lwn and h-online and such. In fact I should probably cut a release this weekend...

So thanks for the signal boost. If you really want to personally pick up the sisyphos role of scaring developers away from open source via the legal system, good luck with it. Android's already written GPL off but I'm sure you can squeeze more out. I found it's easy to find lawyers happy to take companies' money, and really hard to get useful code out of the process. (Way, way, way more time and work than just writing it yourself.)

It's pretty easy to go after small fry and declare them "no longer in violation" after they go out of business or give your lawyers a lot of money and a random useless tarball of stuff you've already got to become technically compliant without ever actually producing any useful code because there _wasn't_ any. And you can draw it out _forever_ by suing "Board Support Package" customers, but not the BSP vendors who added the new drivers and never gave their customers complete source in the first place, and rack up an endless string of meaningless "victories" that way.

Personally? Been there. Done that. It gets old.

Rob

(I asked the SFLC why they sued Cisco instead of Broadcom, since they were complaining about a Broadcom BSP toolchain Cisco never _had_ the source code to. I never did get a clear answer to that one. I believe they said the FSF was the plaintiff not the busybox developers, so they couldn't discuss details of the case with me, or something like that.)

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 2, 2012 3:17 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (3 responses)

Should I point out that when Microsoft threatened Barnes and Nobel with a patent infringement lawsuit and entered into negotiations they demanded the ability to veto future products, veto any of their features and even what hardware was included along with some other equally distasteful terms. The end result was that had B&N agreed to the terms they would have had to ask MS for permission for any new products and allow MS to make design decisions.

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 2, 2012 10:06 UTC (Thu) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link] (2 responses)

Do you have links to supporting documents?

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 2, 2012 11:34 UTC (Thu) by tterribe (guest, #66972) [Link] (1 responses)

http://web.archive.org/web/20191122135204/http://groklaw.net/article.php?story=2011111122291296

A tempest in a toybox

Posted Feb 3, 2012 1:10 UTC (Fri) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link]

Thanks! It's always great to have supporting evidence. It's sadly lacking in so many place, and if you don't have support, you don't have an argument.