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I am sorry that I have to say this, but large parts of the GNU/Linux community are just irrational idealists hard to work with. Read the GPLv3, it's a great pol

• bcg1 11y ago
  Linus is not a god, and his proclamations are not gospel. He can crow all he likes about how he wishes he never used the GPL and how he is not political... but the truth is, no one knows what would have happened if he didn't use the GNU license or distribute GNU software. Its theoretically possible that his project would have died on the vine without members of the community who cared about those things and made considerable contributions. Nobody knows, not even Linus.
  • myztic 11y ago
    Linux would have never been as successful if someone like rms would have called the shots. People still tinker with the GNU Hurd microkernel and it's less usable than Minix. Linus is also no god for me, but he is delightfully pragmatic, someone companies can work with, not against.
    • bcg1 11y ago
      Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul
      • theGimp 11y ago
        1. Attribute that quote. 2. This has nothing to do with Linus, and from what I can tell, parent did not deserve it either. Linus hasn't made a fortune off Linux. He could have, but he didn't.
        • bcg1 11y ago
          1. http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/masters-war http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/masters-war 2. To clarify, I wasn't referring to Linus
      • mjcohen 11y ago
        However, if there is no forgiveness and no soul, money is a useful (but not the only) metric.
    • BCM43 11y ago
      "Linux would have never been as successful if someone like rms would have called the shots." I'm not sure how you can think that when GNU, which is the operating system for just about every single server running Linux, was started by RMS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU
      • myztic 11y ago
        A lot of userland-stuff is GNU, Linux is the kernel. Kernel + Userland is OS! So saying "GNU ... is the operating system for just about every single server running Linux" does not make sense.
        • 11y ago
  • vacri 11y ago
    > He can crow all he likes about how he wishes he never used the GPL Torvalds seems to like v2 and not v3[1]. I can't find a source of him saying he wishes he hadn't used the GPL at all - do you have one? It seems that v2 does exactly what he wants - get code back. [1] "I still think version 2 is a great license": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU - in fact, in this talk, he says v3 is fine as a license (though not for his needs), but his problems with it were the way that the FSF was trying to submarine it into all existing v2 licenses, and misleading people about how it worked.
  • abecedarius 11y ago
    Has Linus said he wishes he'd never used the GPL? That's news to me. I guess it'd have to have been after he wrote Git?
  • kardos 11y ago
    > He can crow all he likes about how he wishes he never used the GPL Wikipedia [1] has this quote: > Torvalds has described licensing Linux under the GPL as the "best thing I ever did." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel#Licensing_terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel#Licensing_terms
    • bcg1 11y ago
      That quotation is from 1997.
      • kardos 11y ago
        He didn't reverse course as late as 2007 [1]. Where's the article/quote where he "wishes he never used the GPL"? [1] http://www.informationweek.com/the-torvalds-transcript-why-i-absolutely-love-gpl-version-2/d/d-id/1053128 http://www.informationweek.com/the-torvalds-transcript-why-i...?
• lifthrasiir 11y ago
  Like it or not, but those "irrational idealists" are also contributors to the Linux kernel anyway. I do not understand that it is reasonable to remove some stakeholders' rights at all. (I have another words to say about the GNU/Linux ideology, but I think that's close to irrelevant here.)
• viraptor 11y ago
  While I agree with that view on GPLv3, the foundation went much further by actually supporting companies which ignore software licenses. You may not like GPLv3, but you're bound by the rules. In the commercial license world it would be like starting an organisation of companies which repackage windows with new features and sell it, never acknowledging or paying MS. There's debatable right or wrong and understanding or not, but what some of those companies do is just violation of law and supporting illegal activities. That is what GPL violators do.
  • myztic 11y ago
    Without bad intentions: Could you point me to some of the cases you are talking about? I am honestly interested, can't promise I will read everything the next hours, but I will definitely read up on it.
    • JoshTriplett 11y ago
      Allwinner: https://linux-sunxi.org/GPL_Violations https://linux-sunxi.org/GPL_Violations VMWare: https://lwn.net/Articles/635290/ https://lwn.net/Articles/635290/
    • viraptor 11y ago
      The links are already in the comments here... but here you go again: "Allwinner is joining the Linux Foundation to support Linux and to improve what we see as two important open source software development capabilities: collaboration and compliance" http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2015/06/new-linux-foundation-members-advance-open-source-enterprise http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2015... Allwinner GPL violations: https://linux-sunxi.org/GPL_Violations https://linux-sunxi.org/GPL_Violations Other ones - just google big sponsors of LF + gpl violation, there are a few.
      • dTal 11y ago
        Context: "Allwinner is joining the Linux Foundation to support Linux and to improve what we see as two important open source software development capabilities: collaboration and compliance," said Jack Lee, Chief Marketing Officer, Allwinner Technology. "These two concepts are critical yet difficult to master for new Linux community entrants like ourselves." Is the Linux Foundation "supporting" Allwinner? Or is, as I suspect, Allwinner paying them dues? https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/en/Corporate_Membership https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/en/Corporate_Membership
• Lazare 11y ago
  Heavens, imagine how terrible it might have been if one person on a 16 person board disagreed with the consensus of the board. How could they have continued to perform their valuable work? Sarcasm aside, you're presenting an argument against the GPL and the FSF. I might even agree, but that seems irrelevant to a more specific question of corporate governance of the Linux Foundation. You're talking about avoiding headaches, but if you want to represent a diverse group of stakeholders, you're going to have some headaches. If the current role of the Linux Foundation is purely to be a voice for large enterprises who wish to exploit Linux, then why did this change? Is it a good change? What organisation does represent the interests of Linux stakeholders? I mean, keep in mind, the core policy difference is whether or not the Linux Foundation supports following the license of Linux. That's the reason (as far as anyone can tell) that Sandler is disliked and the at large board seats were removed. Can you imagine the BSA working to keep a lawyer who sued software pirates off their board? The very idea is absurd.
• ossreality 11y ago
  Does VMWare pay well? edit: I AM FUCKING ABSOLUTELY ASHAMED THAT THE GP'S COMMENT IS STILL SO HIGH. Shame on you mother fuckers. Shame on every one of you that have benefited from OSS code, which is every single one of you.
• JoshTriplett 11y ago
  First, the GPLv3 has absolutely nothing to do with this. The enforcement cases in question involve the GPLv2. Second, it hardly seems "anti-business" to require everyone (businesses included) to comply with the license agreements of the software they use. And third, the entire issue of enforcement only came up in this context because of this remarkably coincidental timing for LF to decide that it no longer wants community representation. It's sad that the best-case scenario is "just" that this change occurred for entirely unrelated reasons, despite the timing; I'd certainly hope that was the reason, rather than the much scummier possibility of changing the rules with one specific candidate in mind, out of fear that they might get elected.
  • Lazare 11y ago
    > Second, it hardly seems "anti-business" to require everyone (businesses included) to comply with the license agreements of the software they use. I'm old enough to remember when following license agreements was pro-business. Has anyone told the BSA yet?
    • egroat 11y ago
      For those of us not quite so old, who are the BSA? I presume you don't mean the Birmingham Small Arms Company
      • icelancer 11y ago
        Likely the Software Alliance. http://www.bsa.org/about-bsa http://www.bsa.org/about-bsa
      • deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      • Lazare 11y ago
        Like Icelancer said, the Business Software Alliance (although apparently they've dropped the "Business" part of the name). Back in the day, they tried to be the RIAA/MPAA of the business software industry; somewhat infamously they ran campaigns urging employees to "bust their boss" by turning the company they work for in for using unlicensed software, and ran cringe-worthy PSAs about the evils of piracy. A relic of the days when Microsoft was powerful and evil, Apple was for hippies, and clouds were things in the sky. Seemed kind of scary back then though. :) Wikipedia has some juicy details (cash bounties, hounding third world countries, etc): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_(The_Software_Alliance) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_(The_Software_Alliance)
• pnathan 11y ago
  Idealists made the world we live in, usually for the better. In any case, I don't understand how "pro-freedom-everywhere" is in any sense a slur.
  • GalacticDomin8r 11y ago
    "Idealist" is one of those non-descriptive and popular terms like "Agnostic". They describe everyone.
• hackuser 11y ago
  > large parts of the GNU/Linux community are just irrational idealists hard to work with. ... Linus always said: He cares about the code back and otherwise not what vendors do with it. I imagine they were called "irrational" when they started the FOSS movement and created the licenses and other tools that are part of it. Yet look what they built and what has been built on top of it. Now it's cool for people who benefit enormously from it, including Linus Torvalds, to disparage it. It's all lefty, hippy 'idealism' after all - if you ignore the enormous practical results. What foundation are we building for the next generation of engineers and tinkerers? Spying and tracking systems? Closed proprietary silos (like smartphones and web applications)? HTTP/2 and systemd - which may be technically great, but don't provide that same freedom-to-tinker for future hackers.
  • ianlevesque 11y ago
    HTTP/2 really doesn't belong in that basket. One of these things is not like the others.
    • hackuser 11y ago
      I really haven't dealt with HTTP/2 so perhaps I misunderstand: Doesn't it replace hacker-friendly (and flexible) plain text with a binary code? I'm not saying the trade-off is bad or good, but there is a cost; it's not free.
      • lstamour 11y ago
        Last I checked, ASCII is an encoding, and was transmitted in packets, so if you're relying on tools to decode and unpack your messages, why not simply upgrade them? Also, people don't seem to complain about the cost of HTTP over SSL in these discussions on HTTP/2. I've never understood that. If you're allowing for TLS, why not HTTP/2?
        • stonogo 11y ago
          Because TLS works with many protocols. Encryption software is hard to write and should be reusable for multiple services; the world is not the web.
• pheo 11y ago
  I'd like to add that a few "anti-business pro-freedom-everywhere radical[s]" thrown in the mix might be just what consumer software needs...
• rmc 11y ago
  The GPL has always been political.
• xolve 11y ago
  Agreed, Linus is a man with great knowledge of kernel, but he may be wrong at times, just like RMS ( ;-) ) I can see why anti-corporate licenses are big win for users. PS4 and Macs use BSD kernel. The whole PS4 is locked up and it totally blocks users from doing anything else, though Sony built it from the components they took from community (BSD, LLVM etc.), they don't have to give it back. On the other hand, I am still waiting for a distro based on Apple's OSS. Linux, GCC, KDE, Qt, GNOME, Java are GPL (or at least LGPL) and there lies the innovation by masses, we see them running on so much variety of form factors. IMHO they need polish and marketing, but at the end of the day my work gets done and I am very much happy with it. As a contributor I am sure if I work on OSS, no company should take it, make a product selling like hotcakes (PS4, Macs, iPhone) and then refuse to open it, lock down the devices and not even be obliged publish the modifications. GPL rocks!