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This would be a much more interesting article if the author had at least tried to get answers to his questions (perhaps from the GNU foundation or the Software
by theBobMcCormick 17y ago
This would be a much more interesting article if the author had at least tried to get answers to his questions (perhaps from the GNU foundation or the Software Freedom Law Center, etc) and included that with his questions. That would have been an interesting article, and possibly useful to hackers and software entrepreneurs.
As it is, I'm surprised and disappointed that an article with so little substance has made it so high on the HN front page.
- jrockway 17y agoHN is largely anti-GPL. You are being dowmodded for that reason.
- benatkin 17y agoNo, he's being downmodded for suggesting that the author should have to contact one particular organization to get answers to simple questions about something as widely used and discussed as the GPL.
- tjr 17y agoThen he's being downmodded unjustly, as he listed two specific organizations, included an "etc." in his list of organizations, and prefaced the entire list with a "perhaps". Regardless of where the answers to these questions come from, it would be good to share the confusion with the FSF, in hopes that they can remedy it. I do not believe their goal is to inflict confusing licenses upon the general public, but they do have rather specific goals and attempt to address those goals in their licenses.
- benatkin 17y agoWell, there's no such thing as the GNU Foundation (there's the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project), so technically there's only one. :) Assuming that he meant Free Software Foundation, his mention of The Free Software Law Center invalidates my point, though, because clearly they're not closely tied to the Free Software Foundation. Otherwise, they wouldn't say "Open Source" on their home page without going into a diatribe about the term.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- tjr 17y agoYes, it would be more interesting. These questions may very well shed light on ambiguities in GPLv3. If so, then I imagine that the FSF would want to take this into consideration for GPLv4.
- callahad 17y agoJust because "this is broken" wasn't followed by "...and here's how to fix it" doesn't mean that pointing out the initial flaw was without merit or substance. Still, I too wish someone at a qualified institution (FSF, SFLC, etc) would weigh in.
- eli 17y agoI bet if you did that and reposted the questions with answers on your blog, it would make it to the front page again