Eric S. Raymond on GPL and BSD licenses. & Microsoft coming to Linux

[Yigal Chripun]

On 30/03/2009 19:24, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 08:38:45 -0400, Yigal Chripun <yigal100 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 27/03/2009 19:17, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>>
>>> Interesting anecdote: Our company developed a Linux driver to one piece
>>> of hardware that our largest customer used. We did not release it under
>>> GPL terms but this is OK legally since the kernel doesn't require GPL'd
>>> drivers.
>>>
>>> The customer had a problem with one of the stock open source drivers in
>>> their OS. However, they couldn't get *any* support from the community
>>> because the community wouldn't even bother looking at a kernel that was
>>> "tainted" by a proprietary driver. So we were *forced* to relicense our
>>> driver under GPL terms (this customer has a lot of clout), just so the
>>> free software community would look at a problem completely unrelated to
>>> our driver. They probably never even looked at the source in our driver.
>>
>> How is this different from Walter, Andrei and co. refusing to look at
>> Tango?
>
> It's different because prior to licensing the driver as GPL, they did
> not *have* the source to look at (and therefore could not be tainted by
> it). The annoying part of the story is that our driver had NOTHING TO DO
> with the error in the GPL'd code. But just because the kernel was
> touched by our code, they refused to fix a bug in their own driver,
> which would have made their driver better. That is really really stupid
> IMO.
sources are not the only issue here. Linux is a monolithic kernel. that 
means everything in it (including drivers) are one process. You already 
know that. usually when you want to find (and fix) a problem, you'd use 
a debugger which allows you to see the memory of the process. there's no 
way to make the debugger show only the memory belonging to the open 
source parts of the code. even if you just see the asm of that closed 
source driver, it'd be reasonable to assume there may be someone evil 
enough to sue you based on that.
people in the US sued MacDonald's because their coffee was hot (and they 
even won the case!). other people sued a company since their peanuts 
contains nuts. why would a developer is free to assume he/she won't be 
sued for accidentally seeing the memory of that closed source driver in 
the debugger?
>
>> Putting aside attitudes and ego, the community refused to look at the
>> tainted kernel out of fear of potentially being sued for copy-right
>> infringement and for the you have the draconian (and unconstitutional)
>> US law to blame, not the FSF and its GPL.
>
> Ah, you're one of those people :) I can't wait until the U.S. takes over
> your meager country and assimilates you into our capitalist ranks
> mwahahaha!
>
lol :)

> And as I said, the community refused to look at THEIR source code in
> THEIR driver, not anything in OUR driver.
>
> I think the whole world could do with less people who are petrified of
> being sued, and more people who take responsibility for their own problems.
>
>>>
>>> This is the kind of mentality I think that completely goes against
>>> progress, and it's fostered by the GPL. I'm not saying the GPL is
>>> useless, but I see little to no value in a for-profit company using it
>>> unless they are forced to. And there's this holier-than-thou attitude
>>> from GPL supporters that completely sucks.
>>>
>>> Anyway, I agree that the world could do just as good without GPL. Maybe
>>> it was necessary in the beginning, but not any more.
>>>
>>> -Steve
>>
>> Both proprietary and free software have a place in the world since
>> they serve different purposes.
>> for instance, I wouldn't want military software to be available online
>> with the risk of being exploited by terrorists but on the other hand I
>> wouldn't want to use any non reasonably free COTS software. When you
>> buy a car you are free to look under the hood and the same should
>> apply to software. sure, the manufacturer can and probably should void
>> any warranty if you mess with the internals of its product, but they
>> shouldn't prevent you access to those internals.
>
> I never said that open source software isn't important or useful. I just
> don't think you need the GPL to protect the openness of the software
> these days. In the beginning, there were very few people working on open
> source software, so GPL protected them, and did a good job of keeping
> the movement alive. Now there are a ton of people doing open source
> under a ton of licenses (many not GPL-like). If the GPL all of a sudden
> went away, would open source developers stop developing open source
> software or would they just switch to a different license? Is it that
> horrible if a company uses your open source software together with
> closed source software but still gives you credit?

sometimes it is very horrible, and sometimes not. I'm not for 
generalizations and think that each project should use the best license 
for it. some projects should be GPLed , some not. GPL is not redundant 
as you may claim since there are projects that use it. as I already 
said, all kinds of licenses have a place in our world, and I strongly 
disagree with the notion that only the licenses that you (or me) like 
should exist.

>
>> "I see little to no value in a for-profit company using it [the GPL]"
>> how do you explain Red-Hat's success? there are many many companies
>> that gain a lot by using GPL and they are certainly not forced to use it.
>
> Red hat has good software, that is why they are successful. They also
> sell their services for updates, AND I believe they have some non GPL'd
> enterprise software, but I'm not sure, I don't buy their stuff anymore.
>
> But I think you are wrong about the "many many" part. There are only 2
> companies selling Linux as fully open source software that I know of --
> Red Hat and SuSe. All the others have gone (and there were a lot of
> them, especially after Red Hat's IPO). Selling open source, and
> particularly GPL'd software is difficult, I don't think it can sustain
> many companies. I would not be surpised if the number of closed source
> companies (those selling at least SOME closed source software) outnumber
> the number of open source companies by 1000 to 1.
>

Linux is hardly the only project that is GPLed nor is it the best 
example of the use of GPL. there are many GPLed projects that provide 
companies with various business models for free (libre) software. I just 
used Red Hat as an example.

>> I agree with you that there are zealots with that holier-than-thou
>> attitude and that this really sucks. by saying - "I agree that the
>> world could do just as good without GPL. Maybe it was necessary in the
>> beginning, but not any more. " you just joined the group of zealots.
>
> I must be a zealot, I disagree with your opinion!
>
> I have no qualms working with GPLd or any other open source software.
> I'm probably the *least* zealous person when it comes to licensing. I
> just want to get work done, and stupid shit that gets in the way (such
> as refusing to fix your own bugs because of some political issue) annoys
> me.
>
>> As I already said, in reality, both proprietary and free software are
>> useful since they fulfill different requirements. saying otherwise is
>> stupid and wrong.
>
> If you mean free as in FSF's meaining of "free" (i.e. copyleft), I think
> you are probably wrong (and heck, I'll throw in stupid too). But neither
> of us can be proven right because GPLd software isn't going away.
>
> -Steve