Re: BK kernel workflow

Linus Torvalds
2004-10-27T03:03:53Z

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Roman Zippel wrote:
>
> Linus, what disturbs me here is that I don't see that you don't even try
> to acknowledge that the bk license might be part of problem

Why?

What's the problem? You don't like it, you don't use it. It's literally
that simple.

This is the same thing as with the GPL. I absolutely _detest_ people who
whine about the GPL - and there are more GPL haters out there than BK
haters. It's _their_ problem.

EXACT SAME THING. Nobody has the right to whine about another persons
choice of license. You have a choice: use it or don't. Complaining about
the license to the author isn't part of it.

Larry can tell you that we've discussed the BK license in private, and he
definitely knows that I'd really like for it to be an open source license.
But I also suspect that Larry will tell you that I haven't been whining
about it - I've been trying to come up with ways it could work out for
him, considering that he's got employees to take care of, and I haven't
been able to come up with anything that would convince him. Fair enough.

Because it really is his choice. Not mine. Not yours. Not Andrea's.

And dammit, that choice is as close to "sacred" as anything can get in
software development as far as I'm concerned.

To paraphrase Voltaire - "I may disagree with your choice of license, but
I shall defend to the death your right to choose it". That goes for Larry,
and for the BSD people and for all the people who write software for a
living using some really nasty licenses.

And the same thing goes for users. Anybody who tells me I can't use a
program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested.
99% of that I run tends to be open source, but that's _my_ choice, dammit.

Linus