Slashdot Log In
Linux Creator Calls GPLv3 Authors 'Hypocrites'
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jul 13, 2007 05:34 PM
from the family-fued dept.
from the family-fued dept.
AlexGr writes "We've heard conflicting tales regarding Linus Torvalds' acceptance of GPLv3. InformationWeek reports on comments by Mr. Torvalds that would seem to decide the issue: 'Torvalds said the authors of a new software license expected to be used by thousands of open source programmers are a bunch of hypocrites ... For Torvalds' part, it appears unlikely he'll ever adopt GPLv3 for the Linux kernel. He accused the Free Software Foundation leadership, which includes eccentric, MIT-trained computing whiz Richard Stallman, of injecting their personal morality into the laws governing open source software with the release of GPLv3. "Only religious fanatics and totalitarian states equate morality with legality," Torvalds wrote.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Fork? (Score:5, Interesting)
Really, I say this mostly for the purpose of humor, but it's true. If there's enough objection to GPLv3 maybe someone will introduce an alternate version based on GPLv2 that allows it to be updated in the future but without the conditions present in v3.
Re:Fork? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Fork? (Score:5, Interesting)
Pardon my language, it's late and I had a long week... (bloody Belgians!!... don't ask.)
Parent
Re:Fork? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the distinction that often gets missed in the "evil/viral" argument, I wish I had mod points to give you.
Sure, the GPL is viral. I don't think anyone really denies that. Some think that's evil, some not. I'm in the "not" camp.
The reason I'm in the "not" camp is because the viral nature of the GPL is not primarily intended to cause someone's non-GPL software to unintentionally fall under the GPL; rather, it is a defensive mechanism aimed at the misappropriation of GPLed software. To wit, you can't use GPLed software in non-free software, and to make sure you don't, the license requires you to release any software you combine with GPLed software under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license. In practice, people who don't want to do that have generally been given the option of ripping out all the GPLed software from their product(s) and duplicating the functionality on their own.
I have no problem with this. The GPL isn't trying to hide anything or get Free software in through the back door. It tells you up front what your rights and obligations are, and like other FOSS licenses, is orders of magnitude more clear about that than proprietary licenses. The GPL requires that if you get, you have to give back, and you can do anything you want with GPLed software except make it non-free. I have no problem with that. It's clear and up-front, and if anyone doesn't like it, the answer is simple: use something else, write it yourself, or pay someone to write it yourself. Those are the same three options you have with a proprietary license you don't like. Well, with the additional stricture that if you write it yourself or have someone do it, the proprietary vendor might look for some software patent violation they could use as grounds to sue you.
Software licenses are not "evil" or "good" - they just are. They reflect the beliefs and values of those who right them. The FSF believes you can do anything you want with software except make it non-free. BSD and similar believe you can even make it non-free. Proprietary licenses believe you can only do what they specifically authorize you to do, and what they authorize really isn't a whole lot. If I were going to sling terms like "evil" around, I daresay the target wouldn't be any open-source license.
Parent
Exactly the problem with GPLv3 (Score:5, Insightful)
While the above post never referred to GPLv3 specifically, I think it made a good and interesting point. I will hijack this part for my own purposes
Fundamentally, I think the poster's quote is one of the biggest arguments against the adoption of GPLv3.
GPL version 2 had no restrictions on what hardware was required upon which to run the software. The license merely required that all modifications to the software were contributed back to the original work. It did not care how you used the software, merely how you contributed back to the project.
Version 3, on the other hand, makes statements about how software is used. As far as I can tell, TiVo is one of the most predominant factors in spurring GPLv3. TiVo contributes their software back to the community, as can be seen right here [tivo.com]. TiVo, however, runs their software on a DRM'ed box. Anybody can use TiVo's source code modifications in their own hardware projects if they so desire. The software is still just as free as if TiVo decided to run it on a non-DRM'ed box.
GPLv3, on the other hand, makes restrictions upon what kind of hardware-software interactions are allowable. Forcing people, corporations, or whomever to use freely available code in a certain way is contradictory to freedom. This is the argument for version 2 of the GPL. It is also the argument against DRM. Strangely enough, it is also the argument against GPLv3.
Enforcing freedom is an oxymoron. This however, is the logical extent of what RMS and people at the FSF are proposing with the adoption of GPLv3, forcing people to run their software on certain hardware. In the words of the poster, the FSF acting exactly like proprietary vendors in limiting the scope of their software to what they "specifically authorize you to do."
Parent
Re:Exactly the problem with GPLv3 (Score:5, Insightful)
It's one of the universe's many ironies that freedom must be enforced. The reason for this is that if you don't enforce freedom, someone else will assuredly impose their will upon others in contradiction of these others' freedoms. This is a direct result of combining "free will" with the physical capability of adversely hindering the freedom of others.
Parent
Re:Exactly the problem with GPLv3 (Score:5, Insightful)
He had a printer that stopped working because the software that came with it was buggy. When he went to fix it, he could not because the source code for the software was unavailable to him.
THAT event is the entire motivation for the FSF and the GPL - an end user with hardware that included broken and un-fixable software. DRM'd software is just another manifestation of that situation, and in fact is arguably covered in the GPLv2 with this clause:
Parent
Re:Exactly the problem with GPLv3 (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally don't want anything from TiVo; I've never used any of their products, and don't expect I ever will. They could magically reflash every TiVo on the planet, rendering it incapable of doing anything except playing a rather bad game of Pong, and I wouldn't care. I mentioned them purely as an example (and because everyone else was doing it).
That's exactly the point: TiVo did keep up its end of the bargain. They did not violate the license in any way, shape or form. Yet, people who bought TiVo's were unable to make full use of the freedoms that the GPL (as a Free software license) was supposed to guarantee them. Some people have no problem with how this transpired: it's TiVo's hardware and they have every right to dictate what software you can run on it. Others felt it was violating the spirit (not the letter) of the license that the code was provided to TiVo under.
That's why they've created a new license, with specific provisions to ensure that if, as an author, you don't want this to be able to happen to your software, you can specify that in the license. The new license is intended to correct flaws in the previous license, as perceived by certain people with specific goals in mind.
As mentioned above, I don't actually care; but from what I've read about the DMCA and related laws, wouldn't it be illegal to modify (or remove) hardware that was designed as a DRM/copyright enforcement mechanism? The TiVo hardware might not fall into this particular category, but it's not inconceivable that the protection mechanisms of future devices would. (In fact, it seems inconceivable that such mechanisms wouldn't fall under the protection granted by the DMCA.)
Further, this raises an interesting point: if it's perfectly okay to be able to hack their hardware, why is it not okay to hack their software? Where do you draw the line between the two? If the device has the ability to receive software updates, but has hardware designed to prevent you from installing software that isn't signed by the manufacturer, do you have the right to remove that hardware? Do you have the right to run whatever software you want on it after removing the hardware that's designed to prevent you from doing just that? If so, why are they allowed to put hardware in there to stop you from using your right to run your own software?
Parent
Re:Exactly the problem with GPLv3 (Score:5, Insightful)
TiVo does not have an intrinsic right to software they didn't write. If TiVo's business model is enabled by Free software, it's only because of the generosity of the authors. Some of them don't like what TiVo has done with their software, including that business model, so now they're being slightly less generous. If TiVo doesn't like that, they can write their own or buy someone else's. That's more than they would have if Free software didn't exist at all.
Parent
Viral (Score:5, Insightful)
I do. The "GPL is viral" meme was invented by GPL-haters as a replacement for real arguments, and spread by trolls and useful idiots.
The GPL encourages people to volunteer their own software under similar terms, by offering them something valuable in return. A virus (biological or computer) is extremely poor analogy for that, except for the strong negative connotations. Which is the only reason it was invented.
Parent
Re:Fork? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Fork? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Fork? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's where the whole TiVo thing comes in. Can someone create hardware that restricts the modifications an end user can make to GPLed code? The TiVo source code is freely available as per the GPL. A TiVo user can download it, modify it and re-distribute it but there's one small glitch: the modified code won't run on a TiVo machine. The machine enforces some sort of checksum to make sure that only unmodofoed code can run.
Abolish copyrights and my guess is all the big software publishers will just adopt a TiVo-like solution that ensures only legitimate copies of their product will run. That is, you can only buy a Microsoft computer that will only run Microsoft products (kind of the way game consoles work now). Worse, the same companies can cherry pick any open source code they want since there is no copyright protection. Finally, chances are that most open source developers won't like suporting the Microsofts of the world and will go do something else. Sounds like a *REALLY BAD IDEA* to me.
Cheers,
Dave
Parent
Re:Fork? (Score:5, Insightful)
For the umpteeth time: of course can any author relicense her software at any moment. But that does not at all affect the earlier licence !
There is no way of retro-actively changing the licence for those who received the software under the 'old' terms. They may use the software for infinity. Only modifications and patches added after the moment of relicencing fall under the new licence. XFree to Xorg is a good example here: XFree changed their licence; fine. Xorg took the software as it was a split second before the change of licence and fully legally so. The former licence remains valid for that software before the change.
The trouble for any fork: The licenses could be non-compatible, and then you compete with yourself, so to say. Who is installing XFree these days ? See. With quite a few of the applications moving to GPLv3, who is going to use a GPLv2-licensed kernel once a GPLv3 licensed kernel becomes available (whispers: SUN-SUN-SUN), which permits the use of the latest versions of those GPLv3-ed applications ?
Parent
Darth Ar'Emess (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Darth Ar'Emess (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Kafaka said it best (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an amazingly true expression borne out again and again. People in their zeal to defeat an enemy they hate because of what they do, tend to gradually adopt the enemy's tactics. E.g. to "defeat" the soviet union in the cold war we became more totalitarian. To defeat the enemies of freedom, kidnappers and torturers, GWB has asked us to sacrifice civil liberties and set up guantanamo.
THis happens at the personal level too not just in the drama of nations.
One might even suspect Google finds it must sometimes adopt dubious tactics in order to quash what it sees a s Evil.
Stallman appears to be on the same road in his obsession to counter microsofts.
Kafaka's principle is hard to avoid. And when an entity feels threaten, feels it might loose or be seriously damaged it feels the ends justify the means. SOmetimes its' neccessary to stay with ones principles and tough out the assualt, rather than lose those principles.
Parent
I for one..... (Score:5, Insightful)
duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this mean that Linus didn't understand that the FSF is a organization with specific goals based on the morals of it's members? It's kinda obvious.
Re:duh (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:duh (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm torn between being so happy that someone finally understood and so depressed that it took so many replies and crazy moderations before that happened...
I can't claim to be an old timer and firsthand familiar with these things, but it seems to me so many young GNU adherents don't understand how much being a hacker already approaches a religion (especially in the negative aspects of organized religion) without someone PURPOSELY trying to espouse religious philosophy. We already have enough heresies, inquisitions, and crusades amongst people who are just trying to get work done or do research... When you start ordaining prophets and messiahs, you're asking for trouble.
Then again half the people reading what I'm writing are probably equating the word "hacker" with some black hat stealing their credit card numbers and defacing websites...
Parent
Re:duh (Score:5, Insightful)
And while I may not agree completely with the language of GPLv3, it still seems perfectly consistant with the moral view that RMS has been expressing since the 80s. Every new thing in GPLv3 is there to try to close a loophole that allowed someone to not grant the rights RMS believes users should have. I have no idea how Linus can call them hypocrits. I was with him more when he was simply saying that it was misguided.
Linus is a smart guy, and he wisely avoids the morality/politics of the FSF most of the time. But he ain't perfect and his decisions to sacrifice principles for practicality can come back to bite him -- see Bitkeeper for a poignant example of how "choose the best tool for the job" but ignoring the license and how that affects the tool's usefulness is the wrong way to be pragmatic and apolitical.
Parent
Re:duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again the FSF are ahead of the game - by asking GNU contributors to please contribute their actual copyright to the FSF. That's how come the FSF don't take legal cases where some scumbag corporate is redistributing Linux without respecting the GPL (ie., illegally): they don't own the copyright on the kernel. (Fortunately lots of the basic toolchain are FSF's so in those circumstances there's generally enough FSF code to actually stop the bastards getting away with it.)
Linus is wrong about this and the FSF is right.
Parent
Re:duh (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, back when Torvalds was fussing over what license to use, the options were slim... and the GPL probably fulfilled his desire to keep Linux open and to have the ability for all improvements to it to be rolled back in and shared.
As a parallel thought, moral sets don't have to necessarily match up, else you get dogma. Not everyone goes to, say, a given church because they believe with 100% certainty that the scriptural interpretations and admonitions made by him (or the membership) can never be wrong or misused. Religion (also a morality-based organizational unit) can never work like that on a practical or even a civilized level w/o imploding or splintering off (see also "Protestants"), so why should software licensing be expected to?
Parent
Forget Linus for a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
With apologies to RMS (Score:5, Funny)
"Hey! That's GNU/Hypocrisy to you, buddy, and don't you forget it!"
I'm with Richard (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahem, GNU/Linux.
The kernel can be replaced.
The philosophy, which is 100% wholly accurate, cannot.
Oh yeah? (Score:4, Insightful)
then why hasn't Stallman done it?
Parent
Re:I'm with Richard (Score:5, Funny)
It's kind of hurd to do that on a running platform.
Parent
And this is news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is GPL 3 that unreasonable given the behavior of the RIAA and MPAA of recent?
Re:And this is news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't try to out-badguy corporate scum. They have budgets for it, you don't. Extending a software license to limit hardware manufacturers is ridiculous.
Nevermind the fact that this has NOTHING to do with the RIAA and MPAA, will accomplish nothing vis a vis their war on piracy, and so I'm confused as to exactly why the hell you brought them up.
Parent
Re:They're above board, not badguys. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and the software they distribute is in no way limited. You can take it and run it on your home built PVR box if you want. What TiVo restricted was running someone else's code on their HARDWARE. So why is a software license limiting their choices in regards to their hardware, dummy?
Preventing "evil" by denying someone freedom who has done nothing wrong is evil. It's not "evil" for TiVo to say "our hardware will not run unsigned binaries". It's a business decision. If you don't like it, take your business elsewhere.
Parent
Re:And this is news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Good question, but one other pops up in response to it:
Is exigency a good enough rationale for permanent change?
In something more closely approaching English, I guess what comes to mind is this... If they're just doing it to defeat a present problem, then what of the future?
Between road-to-hell pavement and the endless measure/countermeasure/measure games that companies (and malware writers) play, there is a danger of two things: First, that the GPL becomes a convoluted mess over large values of time in an attempt to patch every little hole that springs forth; that would make the thing impractical for programming use. Second, that something really awful gets discovered by a creative but perfectly legal interpretation of the changes.
In all seriousness, I doubt that either would happen w/ GPLv3, but IMHO, we really shouldn't get into the habit of this...
I grok the moral underpinnings, and appreciate the intentions, but there's still a nagging feeling at the back of my head that says if any more massive changes are made, then we'll be dancing right on the line that separates practicality from dogma. I believe Torvalds thinks that GPLv3 has already crossed it. Others prolly think that the line is still miles away (in either direction, if we count MSFT bigwigs).
Perhaps someone needs to define that point where codifying philosophy will only bring diminishing returns? Like I said, IMHO I don't think we're quite there yet, but that the next iteration may well take us right past it.
Parent
Ah, hyposcrisy, yes. (Score:5, Funny)
Damn! (Score:4, Insightful)
If only CEO types would start doing that (w/o hiding behind an alias, that is)...
Attention (Score:5, Insightful)
New Joke (Score:4, Funny)
A: Because then they'd have to write their own software.
Context please? (Score:5, Insightful)
Without seeing the context, in general I would say the core disagreement between RMS and Linus (setting aside the frivolous GNU/Linux naming thing) lies in their respective notions about morality: RMS believes it to be essentially objective, whereas Linus considers it a subjective concern. This seems to be another manifestation of that disagreement.
Re:Context please? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Here's the post the article is based on.. (Score:5, Informative)
Go the rant Linus.
What Linus really said (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What Linus really said (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh... the author of the article seems to be yet another bozo trying to stuff words in Linus's mouth. Clearly people opposed to free software development have decided that trying to make GPL V3 a big issue will win them points.
What's interesting is that I haven't heard any criticism from the FSF over Linus's choice to keep the Linux kernel GPL V2. Clearly they want people to upgrade to GPL V3. In fact, here's RMS's editorial on the subject:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/rms-why.html [fsf.org]
In it he doesn't even mention the Linux kernel. In fact he goes so far as to say it's OK to run a GPL V2 program side by side with a GPL V3 program.
I'm getting a little bit tired of this stuff. The spin doctors are working overtime to discredit free software developers. I think it's time we just ignored them and got back to writing code.
Parent
What is the problem? Someone please explain! (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS writes licence named GPLv3 - so what? Nobody is forced to use that license so I don't think there is a problem here. When somebody uses his license it is not his (RMS) fault. It is fault of the entity which choosed this license. Or isn't it?
So basically Linus is yelling that if *I* use f.e. GPLv3 for *my* project it somehow not my fault but RMS?
I don't get it. I must have not understood something since Linus usually speaks quite sane and I belive him.
So again - somebody please explain what is the problem here?
Is GPL version change really such a disaster?
What should I care as Linux user?
Read the original (Score:5, Informative)
I think Linus' statements make much more sense in context.
For instance, several posters here have responded to "Only religious fanatics and totalitarian states equate 'morality' with 'legality'," by pointing out that all western legal systems represent morality in some way. However that is missing the point, and I think, not what Linus meant. Democratic systems compromise on a *common* idea of how morality should be represented by laws. This is entirely different from religious fanatics or totalitarian states where the moral ideas of an individual or small group is the only acceptable one. The point Linus is making here is that the GPLv3 is used as a vehicle to impose upon others the ideas of a few and regulate what Linus thinks should be a matter of choice.
I agree with Linus point of view: it might be wrong to trust in the choice of users. Maybe users will not do what I wish they would do - not buy DRM protected music etc. Maybe this will lead to a point where Linux needs a program that can play DRM protected media. But still, I think that taking that choice away from future Linux users would be the totalitarian way of trying to achieve things. Personally I would not want that. I hate DRM, software patents, vendor lock it, but as a *NIX user of more than a decade, I do not want Linux (and other open source software) to become the blunt weapon of a few fanatics instead of an inviting and competitive alternative.
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
In the 90's, I think most of the people worked on Linux due to the unclear legal status of BSD, not some funny "morality" issue.
Without the legal issues, FreeBSD would probably be where Linux is now, perhaps even further, and Linux would never have taken off like that - it would have stayed as a little practice project for the Helsinki University. However, now Linux just has so much momentum with it that it's the focus of most open source efforts.
Parent
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not flaming, trolling, or otherwise... but a sense of perspective is kinda needed as to why BSD didn't catch on as fast or as big.
(OTOH, the BSD license made it easy to incorporate a LOT of stuff from it into Linux, and the results converted to GPL licensing...)
Parent
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to disagree with you on this one. Having tried to contribute to all three of popular systems in the early nineties (Linux, BSD, and Hurd), Linux was the *only* one where you could easily get any work done. I still remember getting emails from a certain someone (not RMS) telling me to go away because they only wanted experienced people working on the Hurd.
People who have read my posts previously know I'm a huge FSF fan. I'm also a huge RMS fan. But Linus changed the way free software was written. It didn't matter who the hell you were, if your code was good it got submitted. Before Linux you often needed to be in a clique to work on a high profile project.
While RMS envisioned free software development, IMHO Linus was the first to really realize it. He was the first to lead a huge group of people to do amazing things over the internet. Free software owes him a huge amount. The way we work now, the things we take for granted, are in large part inspired by how he ran the Linux kernel project in those early years. Now almost everyone does it that way.
Maybe it's hard to understand how this was a choice of "morals". But quite seriously, after being treated like I was, I wouldn't work on the Hurd nor *-BSD if you paid me to. Linux was the place to be *precisely* because it implemented the moral situation that was ideal for free software development. Everyone was treated as an equal. There was no "secret code". There were no "private" repositories. You could just do your thing. If it was good enough, Linus would roll it into his distribution.
The GPL doesn't enforce morals. It is a legal document after all. But it can set the stage to clear barriers for people working together. Many licenses force people not to work together, even if they want to. They insist on creating classes of users/developers -- some with more rights than others. IMHO, this is the "moral" issue that the FSF is trying to tackle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than just a license. But it's a start.
So while most people didn't sit down and say "Hey, Linus is being more moral", people chose to work on the project simply because it was better. He actually acted in the spirit of license he chose. It was fun/possible to contribute. You didn't feel like a schmuck just for asking for the latest build. And I suspect if this ever changed dramatically in the Linux kernel development, you'd get a lot of people jumping ship.
P.S. You won't find my name amongst the Linux kernel developers. Shortly after started working on things I actually signed an inventions agreement that forbade me from doing free software development. Yes, I sold out. I did that for years and years. Until finally I got sick of treating my customers like shit. I finished my last proprietary gig a week ago and I'm not looking back.
Parent
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
No one is switching to Solaris, because Solaris is dying, if not dead already. The only reason why Sun has opened it up is because they're desperate. Their expensive hardware has been replaced with commodity components, and their expensive OS has been replaced with one that costs nothing to aquire, Linux. Opening Solaris is desperation move, just like Netscape opening Navigator, only OpenSolaris won't get any traction in the Community, because the open source unix kernel niche is already occupied -- by Linux.
Oh, and you forgot to call it GNU/Solaris.
If you want to look for a project that appeals to people that care more about political wankfests than getting real work done, look at HURD, or even FreeBSD, and look where those projects are. What's the install base of HURD? Twelve?
Since when does someones ability to critique a political and legal document hinge on whether some one is actively writing code? It's not like Linus is sitting back and resting on his piles of money. (Like he has any.)
You want to believe that people flocked to Linux because the GPL made it more "moral." Bullshit. People jumped on the Linux bandwaggon, because it was unix that ran on the 386. FreeBSD didn't even exist until 1993, and prior to that 386BSD wasn't even released until 1992. By comparison, Linux was initially released in 1991. It had first mover advantage and an open source license. That's it. So go and spout your historical revision somewhere else, because contrary to what RMS and the FSF mailing lists say, most people don't care about political statements. They just want their code to work.
Now run along and file your bug report against the Linux kernel for using bitkeeper, or not calling itself GNU/Linux. The grown-ups have work to do.
Parent