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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the don-asbestos-garments dept.

[Updated 2018-09-26 20:30:00 to show the CoC is already in effect. --martyb]

[Ed Note: Given Linus Torvalds' recent decision to step down as head of Linux development for a while, and news of an attempt to install a a new CoC (Code of Conduct) on Linux development, I believe it important to communicate this to our community. It does, however, offer an opportunity for more, ummm, fire, flame, and feelings than the usual stories posted here. Let's try and keep things civil and discuss the merits (or lack of same). To quote Sergeant Joe Friday "All we're interested in is the facts, ma'am."

If you are not interested in this, another story will be along before too long... just ignore this one.

As for the code of conduct itself, take a look at: code of conduct and the kernel commit.]

Eric S. Raymond speaks in regards to the Linux CoC:

From(Eric S. Raymond)
SubjectOn holy wars, and a plea for peace
DateSun, 23 Sep 2018 16:50:52 -0400 (EDT)

Most of you know that I have spent more than a quarter century analyzing the folkways of the hacker culture as a historian, ethnographer, and game theorist. That analysis has had large consequences, including a degree of business and mainstream acceptance of the open source way that was difficult to even imagine when I first presented "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" back in 1997.

I'm writing now, from all of that experience and with all that perspective, about the recent flap over the new CoC and the attempt to organize a mass withdrawal of creator permissions from the kernel.

I'm going to try to keep my personal feelings about this dispute off the table, not because I don't have any but because I think I serve us all better by speaking as neutrally as I can.

First, let me confirm that this threat has teeth. I researched the relevant law when I was founding the Open Source Initiative. In the U.S. there is case law confirming that reputational losses relating to conversion of the rights of a contributor to a GPLed project are judicable in law. I do not know the case law outside the U.S., but in countries observing the Berne Convention without the U.S.'s opt-out of the "moral rights" clause, that clause probably gives the objectors an even stronger case.

I urge that we all step back from the edge of this cliff, and I weant[sic] to suggest a basis of principle on which settlement can be negotiated.

Before I go further, let me say that I unequivocally support Linus's decision to step aside and work on cleaning up his part of the process. If for no other reason than that the man has earned a rest.

But this leaves us with a governance crisis on top of a conflict of principles. That is a difficult combination. Fortunately, there is lots of precedent about how to solve such problems in human history. We can look back on both tragic failures and epic successes and take lessons from them that apply here.

To explain those lessons, I'm going to invite everybody to think like a game theorist for a bit.

Every group of humans trying to sustain cooperation develops an ethos, set of norms. It may be written down. More usually it is a web of agreements that one has to learn by observing the behavior of others. The norms may not even be conscious; there's a famous result from experimental psychology that young children can play cooperative games without being able to articulate what their rules are...

Every group of cooperating humans has a telos, a mutually understood purpose towards which they are working (or playing). Again, this purpose may be unwritten and is not necessarily even conscious. But one thing is always true: the ethos derives from the telos, not the other way around. The goal precedes the instrument.

It is normal for the group ethos to evolve. It will get pulled in one direction or another as the goals of individuals and coalitions inside the group shift. In a well-functioning group the ethos tends to evolve to reward behaviors that achieve the telos more efficiently, and punish behaviors that retard progess towards it.

It is not normal for the group's telos - which holds the whole cooperation together and underpins the ethos - to change in a significant way. Attempts to change the telos tend to be profoundly disruptive to the group, often terminally so.

Now I want you to imagine that the group can adopt any of a set of ethoi ranked by normativeness - how much behavior they require and prohibit. If the normativeness slider is set low, the group as a whole will tolerate behavior that some people in it will consider negative and offensive. If the normativeness level is set high, many effects are less visible; contributors who chafe under restriction will defect (usually quietly) and potential contributors will be deterred from joining.

If the normativeness slider starts low and is pushed high, the consequences are much more visible; you can get internal revolt against the change from people who consider the ethos to no longer serve their interests. This is especially likely if, bundled with a change in rules of procedure, there seems to be an attempt to change the telos of the group.

What can we say about where to set the slider? In general, the most successful - most inclusive - cooperations have a minimal ethos. That is, they are just as normative as they must be to achieve the telos, *and no more so*. It's easy to see why this is. Pushing the slider too high risks internal factional strife over value conflicts. This is worse than having it set too low, where consensus is easier to maintain but you get too little control of conflict between *individuals*.

None of this is breaking news. We cooperate best when we live and let live, respecting that others may make different choices and invoking the group against bad behavior only when it disrupts cooperative success. Inclusiveness demands tolerance.

Strict ethoi are typically functional glue only for small groups at the margins of society; minority regious groups are the best-studied case. The larger and more varied your group is, the more penalty there is for trying to be too normative.

What we have now is a situation in which a subgroup within the Linux kernel's subculture threatens destructive revolt because not only do they think the slider been pushed too high in a normative direction, but because they think the CoC is an attempt to change the group's telos.

The first important thing to get is that this revolt is not really about any of the surface issues the CoC was written to address. It would be maximally unhelpful to accuse the anti-CoC people of being pro-sexism, or anti-minority, or whatever. Doing that can only inflame their sense that the group telos is being hijacked. They make it clear; they signed on to participate in a meritocracy with reputation rewards, and they think that is being taken way from them.

One way to process this complaint is to assert that the CoC's new concerns are so important that the anti-CoC faction can be and should be fought to the point where they withdraw or surrender. The trouble with this way of responding is that it *is* in fact a hijacking of the group's telos - an assertion that we ought to have new terminal values replacing old ones that the objectors think they're defending.

So a really major question here is: what is the telos of this subculture? Does the new CoC express it? Have the objectors expressed it?

The question *not* to get hung up on is what any individual's choice in this matter says about their attitude towards, say, historically underepresented minorities. It is perfectly consistent to be pro-tolerance and pro-inclusion while believing *this* subculture ought to be all about producing good code without regard to who is offended by the process. Not every kind of good work has to be done everywhere. Nobody demands that social-justice causes demonstrate their ability to write C.

That last paragraph may sound like I have strayed from neutrality into making a value claim, but not really. It's just another way of saying that different groups have different teloi, and different ethoi proceeding from them. Generally speaking (that is, unless it commits actual crimes) you can only judge a group by how it fulfills its own telos, not those of others.

So we come back to two questions:

  1. What is our telos?
  2. Given our telos, do we have the most inclusive (least normative) ethos possible to achieve it?

When you have an answer to that question, you will know what we need to do about the CoC and the "killswitch" revolt.
--
                Eric S. Raymond

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 1787

LKML URL: http://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/23/212

Possibly in reference to: http://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/20/444


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:22PM (35 children)

    by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:22PM (#740194) Journal

    Its just too convenient that the forced windows 10 "upgrade" finally started pushing non-tech people in the direction of linux, and now these internal attacks are coming out. I doubt most SJWs as you call them are doing more than following some thought leaders, so who are they?

    Let's not negate all of the hard work by so many talented coders by giving all credit to Microsoft. Linux was a rising star long before Windows 10; surely Win10 helped, but what really did it was *building a decent operating system*.

    However, I do think there may be a bit of truth to your statement -- it's gotten too popular among people who simply don't understand how it works. They're treating open source projects like a typical corporation. They don't actually understand the fundamental concepts of open source development. They ought to go read ESR's CatB actually...that would probably be quite informative. We have a long history of projects working on the same code with different ethos/telos. That's why PaleMoon forked from Firefox...or even IceWeasel before that. That's why we have so many different distros all packaging damn near the same products. If you don't like what some existing group is doing, you take the code and you build your own group and let people choose which project they want to support. What you don't do is try to destroy the existing group out of spite. There's absolutely no reason for that.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:29PM (33 children)

    by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:29PM (#740200) Homepage Journal

    That's perfectly reasonable.

    If you don't like the way Linux is being run, FORK! There's no reason to try to fight the Linux development team, even if you disagree with the way they are handling it. That's what the GPLv2 is for.

    Anyone who tries to withdraw their copyright in violation of the GPLv2 needs to be put on a wall of shame, and blacklisted from participation in the Open Source ecosystem. The system can't survive if people withdraw their supposedly irrevocable licenses.

    --
    The Government is a Bird
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:41PM (15 children)

      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:41PM (#740207) Journal

      And those who don't like how Linux is being run now aren't considering forking. They're threatening to pull their code from the project, thus gutting it. That's about as far from an open source ethos as one gets IMVHO.

      --
      This sig for rent.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:45PM (14 children)

        by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:45PM (#740212) Homepage Journal

        Yeah. I understand why they are mad. I actually agree with them that what the Linux team is doing is wrong. But I also think the GPLv2 gives you the right to fork for exactly this type of ideological disagreement. We can have separate projects with different ethical rules that are based on the same code, thanks to the GPLv2.

        --
        The Government is a Bird
        • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:51PM (13 children)

          by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:51PM (#740264) Journal

          Yes, but if I get this correctly -- and I might *not* and I invite correction if I'm misunderstanding -- but the threat here isn't that separate projects based on the same code will happen. Instead you have contributors asserting that they will *pull* "their" code from the kernel and not allow it to be used anymore for the Linux kernel. They effectively gut the kernel this way. GNU says you "shouldn't" do this (in relation to a program being used *only* under the latest GNU license / being able to revoke earlier terms under which software is released) but it does not say it "cannot" be done.

          --
          This sig for rent.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:31PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:31PM (#740289)

            The code is already distributed with license agreements, your comment does not make sense.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:46PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:46PM (#740380)

              I think it makes perfect sense but perhaps I didn't explain myself.

              RTFA, the "possibly in response to" post and also figure out what ESR means by a "killswitch revolt".

              I believe the notion is that the individual contributors of code have the right to unlicense *their contributions* to the codebase.

              It's not just the codebase that is licensed but the individual contributions that went into it is the theory are each individually licensed by the code writer(s), I think. (Which may not be correct nor legal but I think this is the theory being feared). The question is: Is there a license by the contributor to the codebase and can that license be revoked? That seems to be an open-ended question that nobody knows the answer to IMO. GPL 3 explicitly states the term of license agreement is the length of Copyright of the work, thus giving a definitive sunset in time to the license. GPL 2 makes no such assurance other than a vague intent to give an explicit copyright to the licenser. But without a term it opens the license legal challenge - a potential argument is that the term is perpetual.... which in the UK may not be "forever". [theregister.co.uk] And in the U.S., IANAL and IMVVHO, one might argue that a perpetual license is not legal either - perpetuity is generally not allowed in estate law, for instance. It may be seen as generally unconscionable to give an eternal license to something - it's not reasonable. Which would then open up the other terms to artificial sunset the was the British decision did ("perpetual" meaning "as long as both sides keep agreeing.")

              This might not be legal nor correct. Personally I think it is understood one is offering one's contribution in a project one knows to be distributed under GPL means one relinquishes one's own copyright of what has been written to the project. But again, that's an unchallenged interpretation. (IS there a "by submitting this code to us you agree...." clause when one offers up a patch?) But apparently ESR thinks there is a potential that this can in fact happen and might be legal.

              Or I might be wrong. But now you can disagree with what I've written.

          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:21PM (10 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:21PM (#740327)

            I believe that "pulling" their code is beyond their rights under GPL2. They can pull their support, but nothing stops the project from effectively telling them to "fork off" and use their existing code in its current state, and continue to develop it as long as they remain compliant with the GPL2 terms. Continued developers also gain author/owner rights in the derivative work, they just don't have the right to violate GPL2 on the parts they incorporated.

            ffmpeg and libav managed to fork and continue down both paths (for a while, at least) and from what I saw of the junior wannabe lawyering in the ffmpeg camp, if there were a way to "pull their code" or anything else hurtful they could come up with, it would have been done.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:24PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:24PM (#740361)

              FFMPEG is arguably an illegal product anyhow the only reason it's tolerated is because so many MPEG group members find the project to be incredibly useful.

            • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:17PM (7 children)

              by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:17PM (#740437) Journal

              Maybe, but by agreeing to contribute the code to a GPL2 project is the contributor therefore licensing "their" code - the exact code they typed - under GPL2? That may seem obvious but unless the project has a disclaimer to the effect of "If you give this to us to use you're doing so under GPL2 [or other license or a public domain waiver]" upon submission the author of that snippet may maintain that they hold copyright to what they contributed, and fully have the right to revoke use to it.

              I don't know that I buy that. Would the law apply common sense that if it's a GPL2 project and you know it you're obviously ceding your rights to it? The author hasn't been paid by the maintainer so "work for hire" copyrighting may or may not apply AFAICT. But I think that's the theory being argued, and I do think it could become a matter for a court to determine if it were pushed that far. Here's someplace else summarizing it the same way [lulz.com] as far as my understanding of the theory.

              --
              This sig for rent.
              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:13PM (6 children)

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:13PM (#740503)

                "Common sense" aka common law, was developed centuries ago by the aristocracy to justify protection of their property. Those aspects of common law and GPL are almost orthogonal.

                If you want to extrapolate intent - publishing your work for all to see, use, copy and extend, for years, under a license like GPL2, would to me, establish intent to share, not intent to spring a novel submarine trap costing the world at large potentially billions while giving you little beyond personal satisfaction when somebody calls you out for being a misogynist pig.

                If GPL2 explicitly included language such as "right to retract" then I could see it, but inferring the right to retract from common law and the presence of explicit exclusion of right to retract under GPL3 does not seem like a reasonable conclusion. If the contributors specifically selected GPL2 when GPL3 was offered, perhaps, but mostly the GPL2 works were licensed GPL2 before GPL3 was even an option. Again, if the contributors had previously published an explicit reason for sticking with GPL2 including their desire to retain the right to retract, that could be reasonable. Attempting to basically retroactively apply it after they were banned from the project just furthers justification for banning them in the first place.

                As for that, I think the ban hammer is ridiculously heavy handed for managing this type of group, but lack of any kind of cultural oversight these many decades is also negligent. It's true: some people mature and learn that being an egotistical jackass really isn't all that satisfying in the end, some don't, but most can be swayed by a little social nudging. Meritocracy sounds great, until merit is being judged by the jackasses.

                --
                🌻🌻 [google.com]
                • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:49AM (1 child)

                  by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:49AM (#740579) Journal

                  I agree that those aspects of common law property rights (as extended to intellectual property) and GPL are orthagonal. And I can also agree that a person knowingly contributing to a GPL project should be aware that they are contributing to a project where the final work is shared and modifiable - preserving some rights but intentionally modifying the right of copy. Those aspects (and others) speak against that theory that one can retract GPL 2 licensed code contributions as others have asserted.

                  However, much of law does not judge based on what reasonable intent is but rather what has been explicitly agreed to. And if you haven't explicitly agreed to signing away your copyright (by work for hire law which I think requires consideration or some other contractual agreement - I don't know that even willful public domain committing has ever been tested in law), these days copyright fully attaches and is vested in the writer. This is combined with cases in estate law which may or may not be parallel saying you cannot establish an irrevocable agreement in perpetuity. It is parallel to contract law that an eternal term is unconscionable. Since V2 doesn't seem to have a time limit (and I might be wrong there - others have said things which seems like I might be) the entirety of the license might be found invalid at its root. This line comes back to if the right to copy has not been explicitly granted it cannot be implicitly taken away... and again - what did the contributor expressly agree to when submitting the code?

                  That dichotomy between paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 is what I think has not been tested. It's my take on what I see each side saying and what a court might well find points of law to be argued in a case.

                  But before a ban hammer is judged as ridiculously heavy handed I want to see who it is truly being swung at first. I get the impression that there's a lot of fear about who's in charge. It would be interesting to see where that fear is really coming from. There is a difference between social maladeptness / being an egotistical jackass and engaging in the behaviors that are described in the code of conduct, for example.

                  --
                  This sig for rent.
                  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:56AM

                    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:56AM (#740737)

                    combined with cases in estate law

                    There's an awesome thought: Linux kernel contributor passes away, their rights pass to their heirs, heirs decide to fsck up the world and pull the rights to the code. I don't see a reasonable judge setting any kind of precedent that would support this scenario.

                    --
                    🌻🌻 [google.com]
                • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 27 2018, @04:02AM (3 children)

                  by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday September 27 2018, @04:02AM (#740637) Journal

                  Actually, reading elsewhere in the comments (about the position of Copyleft on GPL retractions) I picked up a little different modification that I wasn't getting betfore. GPL2 contributions are themselves subject to the GPL2 as the patcher is modifying the software and thus subject to accepting the license terms in order to submit their modification in the first place. (As opposed to thinking that the wrriting of the patched code itself carries its own copyright.) Still dunno, still think it could be tried in court, but the Copyleft interpretation takes away the right to revoke from a patch submitter IMVHO.

                  --
                  This sig for rent.
                  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:59AM (2 children)

                    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:59AM (#740738)

                    Anything can be tried in court.

                    Tangentially: I think it would be very difficult to find any significant piece of kernel code that's 51% "controlled" by people wanting to pull the rights. Besides, how do you determine % contribution to code? Blame line count is an insanely crappy metric: whitespace changes, etc. Even if you remove all whitespace editing, how do you rate importance of a style change vs a conceptual innovation? Particularly when many conceptual innovations actually have negative value.

                    --
                    🌻🌻 [google.com]
                    • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:34PM (1 child)

                      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:34PM (#740796) Journal

                      True, anything can be tried, but a solid enough theory can get a summary dismissal after initial response assuming one provides both a better interpretation of law which is uncontestable and no matter of facts to determine in that assessment. You're still putting out lawyer money but not nearly as much.

                      On the tangent, though, yeah that 51% idea also assumes that a project still has all contributors. (Don't you need to find 51% of all parties who still have any submissions in the base? Or can withdrawn developers be excluded?) I'd think it would be 51% of the parties who've contributed - write one line that gets incorporated and you're officially a contributor with an interest under that twisted notion. Is there case law behind making that determination or would the first (next) court considering the issue get to write precedent for the determination? But if 51% of active contributors decide to make a change (allow a withdrawl) in advance then maybe it's thought that is insurance against it ever being actionable in a court. (Or maybe the whole theory got lifted from cryptocurrency transaction reversals and not actual coding at all???)

                      Another tangent: Revoking contributions depends entirely on the person(s) with the button to commit changes, and what that person(s) both will do and what a court might order that person(s) to do (and what weapons a court has to make its will stick). If the committer won't push the button and a court won't make that person push the button (either in trial or because the theory is either tested or will not be tested) and one still has no problem.

                      Something about the unconditionedwitness post reminds me of tax protesters.... "Here's a bunch of steps [with no case law behind the conglomeration] to achieve [a whole bunch of legal theories squashed together that sound good but don't necessarily mesh] and achieve your result [which sounds good until you actually think about how much common sense it violates. Which isn't necessarily a legal impediment but can't just be ignored without due legal consideration either.]" More I think about it, the more it reads like a quasi-legal framework that real lawyers may demolish easily.

                      --
                      This sig for rent.
                      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:23PM

                        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:23PM (#741072)

                        the more it reads like a quasi-legal framework that real lawyers may demolish easily.

                        As did the GPL at first, but I think it's slowly gaining legitimacy... until crap like this comes up.

                        --
                        🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:27PM

              by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <axehandleNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:27PM (#740513)

              I believe that "pulling" their code is beyond their rights under GPL2. They can pull their support, but nothing stops the project from effectively telling them to "fork off" and use their existing code in its current state, and continue to develop it as long as they remain compliant with the GPL2 terms...

              And as long as they use the "old" code in the kernel the kernel must remain GPL2 - which means that, while the new project developers may have choice in who gets to contribute, they can't change the rules covering its final use.

              --
              It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:43PM (15 children)

      by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:43PM (#740211) Journal

      If you don't like the way Linux is being run, FORK! There's no reason to try to fight the Linux development team, even if you disagree with the way they are handling it. That's what the GPLv2 is for.

      Anyone who tries to withdraw their copyright in violation of the GPLv2 needs to be put on a wall of shame, and blacklisted from participation in the Open Source ecosystem. The system can't survive if people withdraw their supposedly irrevocable licenses.

      Frankly, I think you've got that backwards. If there's this much disagreement over the CoC, then the people pushing it should be the ones forking rather than ripping apart the existing community just because they don't like how that community operates. If you've got a better governance idea, prove that it's better in a fair competition.

      • (Score: 2) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:50PM (12 children)

        by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:50PM (#740220) Homepage Journal

        Ultimately I think Linus should decide. Interesting that he stepped down at this time. It creates a problem.

        I also agree that the CoC side should be the ones forking, not the other way around. But lets say that they don't, it doesn't give the anti-CoC group the right to violate GPLv2.

        Personally, I am considering suing anyone who threatens to withdraw their GPLv2 permissions for declaratory judgement in U.S. Court. Since that would affect my license as well, I have ample grounds to do so.

        Shall we test if the GPLv2 is indeed rescindable under U.S. law?

        --
        The Government is a Bird
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:15PM (2 children)

          by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:15PM (#740234) Journal

          The GPL v2 explicitly states that you must receive express permission from every author in order to change the terms of distribution for any contributed code:

          10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.

          The CoC is attempting to add additional restrictions on what code can be distributed:

          Maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.

          Therefore, the new CoC violates the GPL unless every existing contributor consents to the change. And clearly they do not...

          • (Score: 5, Informative) by termigator on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:59PM

            by termigator (4271) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:59PM (#740270)

            You are confusing distribution with modification. The CoC does not violate the GPL.

            The “change” is not a change in licensing, which would require agreement of all contributors. Change in the code is allowed as long as changes follow the GPL when distributed.

            For example, if I contribute code to a GPL-based project, my contribution is covered under the GPL. Someone else can the change my contributed code for whatever reason within the project and the release under the GPL. Otherwise, no one could ever fix bugs on code that was not directly contributed by them. Another way to look at it is the CoC adds to the list of reasons why code in project can be altered beyond the reasons of bug fixing and functional improvements.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by mr_mischief on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:32PM

            by mr_mischief (4884) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:32PM (#740447)

            You're free to pull from master, make changes, and redistribute those under the GPLv2 whether or not you follow the CoC. That's redistribution.

            You're not free to harass one of the maintainers and have your code merge upstream. You were never free to demand your code was accepted upstream in the first place. All that's changed with the CoC regarding the code is they can feel free to tell you they won't accept technically solid code from you upstream for non-technical reasons, and they can point to a codified list of reasons why.

        • (Score: 5, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:41PM (5 children)

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:41PM (#740254) Homepage
          "Interesting that he stepped down ..."

          What's most interesting to me is that the mail in which he announced his withdrawal contained a matching pair of smart double-quotes, and a single smart apostrophe. Linus almost entirely sticks to ASCII, in particular on LKML. Which implies to me one of two things:
          - he's hanging a flag upside down, or sticking up a middle digit - this is duress;
          - he didn't actually write parts of his mail, somebody wrote them for him.
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:34PM (4 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:34PM (#740291)

            Where is the evidence for this?

            • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:26PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:26PM (#740404)

              Look for it yourself: http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1809.2/00117.html?print=anz [iu.edu]

              Great catch, FatPhil. Glad the "Funny" mod has been replaced by "Insightful" now. That is an indication that Linus could have been handed a declaration to submit under duress. We should try to identify what the last commit to the Linux tree was, in which Linus was still free to act.

            • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:15PM (2 children)

              by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:15PM (#740435) Homepage
              Amazingly, the evidence for what I have claimed is in his mail is ...

              wait for it ...

              in his mail.
              --
              Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:43PM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:43PM (#740474)

                Sorry, all the quotes and apostrophes look the same to me.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:56PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:56PM (#740493)

                  The link doesn't display the text properly. This one [lkml.org] properly decodes the non-ASCII, and is probably a safer source anyway.

                  For instance:

                  Usually it’s just something I didn't want to deal with.

                  On the original link, it appears in my browser as:

                  Usually itâs just something I didn't want to deal with.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:50PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:50PM (#740306)

          They will wait until they are ready to initiate legal proceedings, then rescind, and then sue anyone who ignores the rescission.

          Would you like to be on the hook for 300,000 in statutory damages per violation, per copyright owner?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:19PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:19PM (#740324)

            > on the hook for 300,000

            Sure. First we interpret the "," as decimal separator (Euro standard) so this = "300". Then we choose the currency, I'll pick "Yen" so this becomes ~ USD $3

            Your move?
             

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:51AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:51AM (#740700)

              Yea... you don't get to decide that.
              The court, interpreting the statute does.
              Haven't you ever read the copyright act?

      • (Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:31PM

        by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <axehandleNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:31PM (#740516)

        ...If there's this much disagreement over the CoC, then the people pushing it should be the ones forking rather than ripping apart the existing community...

        I agree. Unfortunately, I can't afford the dollars needed to buy a voice on the Linux Foundation.

        --
        It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:48PM (#740949)

        Agree.

        I don't personally have a problem with a CoC, but I might at some time in the future. I don't see why this has to be a normative project-level policy.

    • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:02PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:02PM (#740777)
      They DID try to fork it. Matthew Garrett (mjg59) forked Linux [github.com] and is currently at "18 commits ahead, 194376 commits behind torvalds:master." NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ON FUCKING "SOCIAL JUSTICE LINUX." Take a hint, SJWs. Fuck out of here.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:34PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:34PM (#740202) Journal

    Corporations, at least traditional ones, don't understand open source. (There are exceptions. I would say Google understands it.)

    You don't own or control open source.

    Open source is like a beehive and the corporation is like a bee keeper.

    The bees are free to leave at any time.

    If you make the bee hive attractive, well maintained, with a good workflow, and Microsoft free, then the bees will say and produce profitable honey for you.

    If you start screwing the bees, or spraying Microsoft around the place, the bees can and will leave.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.