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In the time leading up to the next Kernel Summit topics are presented and discussed beforehand on the Ksummit-discuss mailing list. There [CORE TOPIC] GPL defense issues was introduced. Even though Linus is not subscribed to this list he speaks his mind, bluntly. A good read.
I'm not aware of anybody but the lawyers and crazy people that were happy about how the BusyBox situation ended up. Please pipe up if you actually know differently. All it resulted in was a huge amount of bickering, and both individual and commercial developers and users fleeing in droves. Botht he original maintainer and the maintainer that started the lawsuits ended up publicly saying it was a disaster.
So I think the whole GPL enforcement issue is absolutely something that should be discussed, but it should be discussed with the working title.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday September 06 2016, @05:41AM
1. Corporations are not people, and they are not part of the community. No matter how much they pay Linus.
2. The binary oppositional view of the world is indeed a more limited and weaker one than a broader more coöperative way, and the latter is better, on that much we agree. But you miss the practical facts, that our legal system in particular is built on that first view and it is forcibly applied to us whether we wish it to be or not. The GPL is and has always been a 'legal hack' that uses the rules of the old world to carve out a space for the new one to operate. When you compromise that hack in the name of coöperation, what you actually do is weaken that shell of law that's been carved out to permit coöperation. This is, assuming it's not simply a clever attack against the community, self-defeating effort at best.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday September 06 2016, @06:35AM
There are a couple of relevant points that seem to elude your grasp as well.
No they don't, but if you feel your life is a lot better making those claims about me, feel free. I'm glad I can make the world a better place for you.
1. Corporations are not people, and they are not part of the community. No matter how much they pay Linus.
Yes captain obvious. Again, some folks tend to take a binary view on this, but corporations do not all interface in the same manner. The big ones are quite notorious and may be quite indifferent and almost dispassionately inhuman in its machinations to deal with for sure. But there are small to mid size corporations as well and some of these do have a more humanistic side when dealing with them. What Greg is saying though is one thing is for sure, the moment you pull in lawyers, they _all_ retreat back into that walled garden.
2. The binary oppositional view of the world is indeed a more limited and weaker one than a broader more coöperative way, and the latter is better, on that much we agree. But you miss the practical facts, that our legal system in particular is built on that first view and it is forcibly applied to us whether we wish it to be or not. The GPL is and has always been a 'legal hack' that uses the rules of the old world to carve out a space for the new one to operate. When you compromise that hack in the name of coöperation, what you actually do is weaken that shell of law that's been carved out to permit coöperation. This is, assuming it's not simply a clever attack against the community, self-defeating effort at best.
Yes, the law is binary. Yes, it is forcibly applied to us whether we wish it or not. However, it has to be initiated by someone making a decision at some point. That is not binary. At least it doesn't have to be is what Greg was suggesting. It seems to what the other guy was suggesting, i.e. the moment there is a someone violating lets go legal on them. The fact that the law is binary is why you want to avoid it. You can win but you lose a lot of goodwill from folks caught in the crossfire and definitely from the losers, so you lose one of the key ingredients behind the spirit of GPL that is the community. Or you can lose.. and well lose everything.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday September 06 2016, @06:56AM
It's obvious to me but just reading the link in the OP it's plain that this is something both Torvalds and GKH have trouble keeping clear in their own minds.
"Again, some folks tend to take a binary view on this, but corporations do not all interface in the same manner. The big ones are quite notorious and may be quite indifferent and almost dispassionately inhuman in its machinations to deal with for sure. But there are small to mid size corporations as well and some of these do have a more humanistic side when dealing with them. What Greg is saying though is one thing is for sure, the moment you pull in lawyers, they _all_ retreat back into that walled garden."
Not quite accurate or at all relevant. You're missing the point. The interactions are always between individuals. The corporation is a floating abstraction, a legal fiction, a 'ghost in the machine.' You cannot directly interact with a corporation, only with human beings who are temporarily empowered to act on its behalf. Those human beings may of course be members of the community, but the corporation itself, the fiction that they temporarily serve, is an entity of a different order entirely. Dealing with intelligent, productive, contributing human beings who are agents of a corporation has a natural tendency to create an emotional bond that is felt to be with the corporation, but unlike emotional bonds with people, an emotional bond with a corporation is always completely and absolutely one-way. It's a delusion, one might even say a mental illness, though it's quite common today.
GKH has done some great work, and I can see in part he went off because he felt slighted by a comment that probably wasn't aimed at him but failed to take him into account. Linus piled on without any such obvious rationale. But both of them are acting like their ability to jet around the world and meet important people face to face and work things out diplomatically over periods of years while making big $$$ is entirely the result of their own work and virtue and has absolutely nothing to do with the FSF which spent years creating the space where what they do is possible, and defending that space. Linus is really deeply, deliberately insulting to people that he should be grateful to, and it's disgusting.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?