Re: BK kernel workflow

Larry McVoy
2004-10-30T23:47:42Z

On Sat, Oct 30, 2004 at 08:51:11AM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 02:35:34PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > > Note that German copyright lay doesn't differentiate whether you paid
> > > or not - it only requires that you allowed to use the program.
> >
> > Sure, but you aren't allowed to use it if you are going to do this.
> > That's pretty unambiguous as well and we think we can make it stick,
> > or at least that's what the lawyers have told me.
> >...
>
> The German copyright law says the licence clauses are invalid - not the
> licence itself.
>
> I'm not sure how a lawyer would circumvent the law...

The flaw here is that you are presuming you have a legal right to use BK
in the first place. You don't, you only get that right if we grant it
to you and if you can't agree with the terms you don't get BK. It's
pretty simple and the terms are pretty reasonable.

As someone pointed out to me in private mail, it is the nature of any
engineer to try and find a way to do something they are told can't be
done.

Further more, he told me that he thought a lot of this discussin is
because people feel like the power of the Linux kernel was shifting
from Linus to me because of BK. Is that true? Do you guys really
think that any of this crud gives me control over Linux? Because
that's certainly not my goal, the whole point was to make sure that
Linus stayed in charge as long as he wanted.

If there are reasonable people out there who feel this way then let's
figure out some sort of public contract or something that makes it clear
that we have no designs on the Linux kernel. That's just wacko but if
a lot of people think that then lets fix that. By the way, with all
due respect, Andrea & Roman are not "reasonable" people in this context.
Let's find some reasonable people who are not BK users and make sure they
are comfortable with what is going on. Alan Cox, Al Viro, who else?
I don't really care if it is non-BK users, BK users, or a combination,
I just care that there is some sanity in the discussion.

Is there any need for this or is this a non-issue?
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitkeeper.com